Committee advances MHDO enforcement rule to require hospital price-transparency reporting

The Joint Standing Committee on Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services on Thursday advanced a rule adding enforcement provisions to the Maine Health Data Organization’s Chapter 100, which governs fines and penalties tied to data reporting.

Carolyn Harrington, executive director of the Maine Health Data Organization, told the committee the change implements requirements from Public Law 2023, chapter 584 and aligns Chapter 100 with MHDO’s recently adopted hospital reporting standard. Harrington said the MHDO board held a public hearing on Sept. 4, received no public comments by the Sept. 15 deadline, and then provisionally adopted the rule on Dec. 4.

The rule adds a new penalty item in the enforcement section requiring hospitals to file price-transparency data or meet the standards defined in the MHDO uniform reporting system. “The new provision that hospitals need to file their price transparency data and or meet the standards for data as defined in 9590 chapter 8 41,” Harrington said in testimony.

Representative Poppy Arford, sponsor of the original price-transparency law, praised the rule as complementing the federal hospital transparency requirements and said it will “put teeth in the bill we passed.”

After moving LD 2167 into work session, the committee voted unanimously to report the rule ought to pass. The committee’s action sends the rule forward for the next steps required for final adoption.