The Trump administration is seeking feedback on how to improve price transparency for prescription drugs.
The Departments of Labor, Treasury and Health and Human Services jointly issued a request for information (PDF) on Thursday that is looking for public comment on requirements around drug price disclosures, including existing data elements. The agencies are also seeking input on access factors, like how readily health insurers can secure the information necessary for reporting.
The RFI is also looking for additional details on state-based approaches and innovations, according to an announcement from the departments.
The request falls under an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in late February that seeks to strengthen regulations around price transparency in healthcare, which were instituted in his first term.
The White House said that while the Biden administration did not revoke the transparency programs, they were “slow walked” and not made a priority. In a fact sheet from February, the Trump administration argued that its predecessors “failed to prioritize further implementation and enforcement of these requirements.”
Alongside the RFI, the three agencies published additional guidance for insurers that sets Oct. 1 as the date that they will finalize guidelines for the updated format they must use for pricing data. The goal of the new format, per the guidance, is to ensure that the data is easier for consumers to understand as well as to cut out meaningless or duplicative datapoints.
Once the guidance is finalized in early October, payers will have four months to take the steps necessary to release compliant data files, according to the document.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) also issued new guidance (PDF) reforming and updating the hospital price transparency program. The document says that hospitals must post their prices in actual amounts, and not estimates.
The agency is also seeking comment on ways it can strengthen enforcement of hospital price transparency regulations and make sure the data posted by these facilities is complete and accurate.
“Transparency empowers individuals to make well-informed health care decisions for themselves and their families,” said Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling in a press release. “The departments’ actions today execute President Trump’s mission to address rising healthcare costs by promoting competition in the marketplace.”
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