On Tuesday, November 2, 2021 CMS finalized the CY 2022 OPPS Final Rule for Price Transparency outlining a drastic increase in Hospital fines for non-compliance.
CMS has increased the penalty for hospitals that don’t post their pricing to be as much as $2 million a year for larger facilities.
Beginning January 1, 2022, CMS will increase the penalty for some hospitals that do not comply with the Hospital Price Transparency final rule. Specifically, CMS is setting a minimum civil monetary penalty of $300 per day that will apply to smaller hospitals with a bed count of 30 or fewer, and a penalty of $10 per bed per day for hospitals with a bed count greater than 30, not to exceed a maximum daily dollar amount of $5,500. Under this approach, for a full calendar year of noncompliance, the minimum total penalty amount would be $109,500 per hospital, and the maximum total penalty amount would be $2,007,500 per hospital.
In January of 2022, non-compliant Hospitals with 30 beds or less will be fined $300 per day and larger facilities will be fined $10 per bed, per day, up to $5,500 a day. That’s an 1800% increase.
CMS is also requiring that the mandated machine-readable data files be accessible to automated online searches and direct downloads.