US hospitals must now post prices. But it may take a brain surgeon to decipher them

The data, posted online in spreadsheets for thousands of procedures, is incomprehensible and unusable by patients — a hodgepodge of numbers and technical medical terms, displayed in formats that vary from hospital to hospital.

The emergency vehicle entrance at the Howard University Hospital in Washington. (Tom Brenner/The New York Times)

Written by Robert Pear

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, responding to a new Trump administration order to begin posting all hospital prices, listed a charge of $42,569 for a cardiology procedure described as “HC PTC CLOS PAT DUCT ART.”

On Jan. 1, hospitals began complying with a Trump administration order to post list prices for all their services, theoretically offering consumers transparency and choice and forcing health care providers into price competition.

It’s turning into a fiasco.

50s

CVS, Aetna healthcare deal approved in U.S.

Pharmacy chain CVS won U.S. antitrust approval for its $69 billion acquisition of health insurer Aetna, the Justice Department said on Wednesday, paving the way for a combination with potential to cut U.S. healthcare costs for consumers.

“This policy is a tiny step forward, but falls far short of what’s needed,” said Jeanne Pinder, founder and chief executive of Clear Health Costs, a consumer health research organization.