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.
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.