The V2.0 Online Validator Tool, recently updated, serves as a helpful resource for hospitals to generate machine-readable files necessary to comply with a federal price transparency regulation initiated in 2021. Machine-readable files play a vital role in facilitating access to hospital pricing information for consumers and researchers, enabling them to compare prices and make informed healthcare decisions.
Hospital Price Transparency regulations require publicly disclosing a machine-readable file containing standard charges for all offered services and items. CMS is now utilizing an automatic validation tool for assessing hospital compliance with these machine-readable file requirements.
If the hospital posts a machine-readable file that deviates from CMS’ required template layout or data specifications, the tool is able to produce "errors" which indicate noncompliance with the requirements effective July 1, 2024, and “warnings” that signal noncompliance with requirements effective January 1, 2025. The CMS validator can assess hospital machine-readable files in either .json or .csv file formats following the new standardized data schema.
If a hospital's uploaded machine-readable file contains over 250 errors, CMS’ online validator tool will halt the review process. It will suspend the review if errors are detected in rows 1 through 3, which cover general data element headers, general data element values, standard charges, item or service, and coding headers.
It's essential to understand that while the validation tool assists in ensuring compliance, CMS emphasizes that the tool does not guarantee full adherence to all requirements of the hospital price transparency regulation. Achieving full compliance now entails not only posting the machine-readable file but also providing a user-friendly list of prices for the 300 most common shoppable services.
Are you unsure if your hospital is meeting all the new HPT compliance requirements? Click here to have the experts at ClaraPrice review your MRF for free today.