Last week, two separate U.S. House of Representatives subcommittees held hearings regarding hospital charges and billing and collection practices. The House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight also considered under what conditions a non-profit hospital should be able to retain its tax-exempt status. The committees are considering whether hospitals should be required to disclose their prices and whether some hospitals are overcharging the uninsured and subjecting them to "aggressive" collection tactics. On Tuesday, June 22, the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight conducted a hearing to discuss whether hospitals should reveal their prices to the public. Advocates of making the figures public say the information would allow consumers to compare prices at various hospitals and enable the government to more accurately determine if individual hospitals are providing sufficient charity care to earn the tax exemptions they receive. The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on Thursday, June 24, 2004 to review hospital billing and collection practices. Critics claim that hospitals' practice of giving price discounts to health plans while charging uninsured or underinsured patients the highest hospital charges-up to 1000% of cost-is unfair. Furthermore, and in light of the recent class action lawsuits filed against non-profit hospitals, the subcommittee expressed concern that patients who are unable to pay are sometimes subjected to aggressive collection practices. Representatives from several hospitals testified that they had recently initiated changes to their billing and charity care policies in response to CMS and OIG clarification. Lewis Morris, the Chief Counsel to the HHS Office of the Inspector General, testified on the OIG's permissive exclusion authority and anti-kickback statute implications of hospital discounts and waiver of charges. Mr. Morris' testimony is available at http://oig.hhs.gov/testimony/docs/2004/40624oig.pdf. Testimony of Herb Kuhn, Director of the Center for Medicare Management at CMS is available at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/media/press/testimony.asp?Counter=1098.
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