Washington state legislature advances bill to increase health care transparency

The push for financial transparency in health care is gaining momentum on the state level as well as nationally.

House leaders in Washington state passed a bill that would increase financial transparency and reporting among health-care organizations, the “Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber” reported. The legislation would help the state better understand how health-care organizations are using tax dollars to serve different communities and allow for these organizations to be held accountable as government spending on health-care increases, said Nicole Macri, the prime sponsor.

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“This bill seeks data that will unveil what is important to solving, not just the sustainability and affordability, of health-care for Washingtonians,” she said. “It will also help us in solving the deep racial inequities in health-care settings, including [higher] mortality rates that people of color, especially Black people, face.”

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would require health-care providers to give detailed reports of staff on duty, the services they provide, the cost of those services and demographic information about the patients who receive care. This includes the patient’s race, ethnicity, preferred language, any disability and ZIP code of primary residence.

Having data to see how health-care resources are being used and how different patients are being treated will help hold the health-care system accountable, said Sybill Hyppolite, legislative director for the Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO.

“Over the past decade, we watched our health-care systems consolidate and expand at rapid rates,” she testified before the House Appropriations Committee last month. “And while communities and legislators were told that increased consolidation would lead to lower costs and improved care, the data tell us otherwise.”

The bill includes provisions that each hospital must report data elements identifying its revenues, expenses, contractual allowances, charity care, bad debt, other income, total units of inpatient and outpatient services, and other financial and employee compensation information.

This kind of financial reporting comprehensively helps hold health-care providers accountable and focused on providing affordable and cost-efficient care, which Hyppolite said is especially important for non-profit health-care facilities that are exempt from certain taxes as part of a good-faith agreement that they will responsibly provide affordable care for their communities. She said she suspects large health-care systems that have shifted focus away from care quality and affordability in favor of financial gain will not be compelled to change until public data show their failure. “You need to be able to see what is going on to be able to fix it,” Hyppolite said.

Read more: 

• Oregon bill would allow consumers to monetize health data
• ‘Locally grown’ insurers keeping ACA premiums low in Washington
• How benefits brokers are preparing for new health care transparency rules