WRN’s Bob Hague spoke with state Senator Julian Bradley about legislation (SB 383) which would require providers to let patients see upfront costs for “shopable” services.
The Price Transparency for Patients Bill gets a public hearing before a state Senate committee on Wednesday. Bradley says about 80% of all services handled by hospitals would be captured under this bill. “So, like an MRI or an X-ray blood work, anything that’s essentially a non-emergency service that they need to get done, they can find out ahead of time what the price will be and shop a little bit and try to save some money.”
Bradley notes the idea of price transparency polls extremely well with voters. Most Wisconsin health systems and the Wisconsin Hospital Association have registered against the measure. “The lobbying effort and opposition to this is strong and and I don’t understand it.” The bill will need to pass both chambers of the Legislature before the current session ends this spring.