The Trump administration has no plans to delay implementation of its hospital price transparency rule on Jan. 1, a White House official said.
Hospitals have implored the Trump administration to delay the January 2021 implementation of hospital price transparency requirements, but the White House does not appear to be backing down.
A White House official said that the administration already delayed implementation when HHS published the final rule and pushed the deadline to Jan. 1.
"As of right now we have no plans to delay implementation further," the official said.
Hospital groups including the American Hospital Association, Federation of American Hospitals, Association of American Medical Colleges and Children's Hospital Association in June wrote to HHS Secretary Alex Azar arguing the rule would be burdensome for hospitals to adhere to amid the COVID-19 pandemic and asked HHS to delay implementation until after the rule's legality is settled by the courts.
"Even attempting to comply with the rule will require a significant diversion of financial resources and staff time that hospitals and health systems cannot afford to spare as they prepare to or care for patients with COVID-19," the hospital groups wrote.
Oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit are set for Oct. 15. A District Court judge upheld the rule in June.
Instead of acceding to hospitals' demands for a delay, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that requires CMS to make data on compliance with the price transparency rule publicly available in March.
"At this point hospitals have shown they want to fight us tooth and nail in court and we think the statutory grounding is sound," the White House official said.
