Early in the year, Judge J. T. Stelzer of the Williams County Common Pleas Court extended a restraining order preventing Ohio’s price transparency law from going into effect in order to give parties time to work on a legislative solution to the unworkable law enacted by the Ohio General Assembly. That restraining order is in effect through Thursday, August 17. Unfortunately, attempts at arriving at a legislative solution have been thwarted. While the governor’s version of the state budget bill contained a provision that eliminated the price transparency statute, that provision was removed by the Ohio House and was not included in the recently passed state budget.
Then on July 5, 2017, Representative Jim Butler (R-Dayton, OH) doubled down on his continued efforts to force implementation of this unworkable statute by introducing House Bill 301, a bill that would require that the Ohio General Assembly sign off on any court-sanctioned final settlement or consent decree, that a state agency or pubic official enters into that would permanently alter or prohibit the enforcement of an Ohio law.
All physician and other health care organizations have stated “loudly and clearly” that the enacted price transparency statute is unworkable and impossible to implement. The required report of the Health Services Price Disclosure Study Committee is still unwritten and the rules to implement the statute are not promulgated. The statute contains no penalties for failing to adhere to the law but most physician contracts contain a clause that states they must be in compliance with all state laws, so it is imperative that a fix be determined as soon as possible.
The intent of the legislation is to require providers of health care services to offer, upon request, a good-faith cost estimate for all non-emergency services. Negotiations relative to how to amend the law to make it workable have been ongoing for over two years; thus, the need for filing of the lawsuit requesting a temporary restraining order.
Legislators see the need for improved health care price transparency, but don’t necessarily understand how complex and difficult it is to make it happen.”
Rep. Butler was the author of the original price transparency language that was inserted at the last minute into last biennium’s workers’ compensation budget. Rep. Butler has blocked all legislative attempts to correct the law that is currently on the books. Rep. Butler, by introducing this latest piece of legislation, seeks to prevent any type of judicial action that would serve to correct the situation with regard to this impossible-to-implement statute.
Watch future editions of the Weekly Family Medicine Update for additional developments.