PatientRightsAdvocate.org (PRA) launched the Hospital Price Files Finder, the first-ever free and publicly available search tool that allows consumers to view the available hospital pricing files from nearly all of the 6,000 hospitals throughout the U.S.

As the nation’s leading nonprofit fighting for healthcare price transparency, PRA created this innovative new tool to provide healthcare consumers—patients, employers, unions, and more—with a searchable database of all pricing files, which arms them with the information needed to compare and save on medical procedures and services. 90% of medical care is planned and non-emergency, yet more than 100 million Americans are in medical debt. This is the first step in putting patients in control of physical and financial health. 

Watch the tutorial video here. 

The latest PRA compliance report showed that just 36 percent of the nation’s largest hospitals are fully complying with the Hospital Price Transparency Rule, which requires hospitals to publicly post all their prices. In Tennessee, PRA found that 48 percent of hospitals are not fully compliant. 

Given the lackluster enforcement, PRA sent a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra explaining how this new tool could help the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) increase assessment and enforcement of the rule and empower all healthcare consumers. 

In the letter, PatientRightsAdvocate.org Founder & Chairman Cynthia Fisher writes: 

“Though many hospitals still fall short of the federal regulation, this dashboard empowers consumers to compare prices across different insurance plans and the discounted cash price, both within the same hospital and across hospitals in a geographic region. 

“We are also excited about the many possible applications of this tool for technology developers to create price comparison tools, empowering consumers – patients, employers, unions, and government plans – to compare and choose the best price, and to have remedy and recourse if there are overcharges, billing errors, and fraud.  This access will reveal the significant and pervasive price variation across hospitals and health plans, allow researchers to easily compare prices, and aide employers when deciding on their benefit plan design.” 

Laurie Cook, a Tennessee resident, has dealt firsthand with the lack of hospital price transparency. Having done her due diligence for the removal of her ovary, Laurie was told that she would owe $5,535 for the surgery. Unfortunately, she received a $61,314 bill and is now fighting the hospital to reduce her cost. With this new dashboard, people like Laurie will be protected from hidden costs as all consumers are able to compare prices and evade demoralizing medical debt.