Fines kicking in after slow start to hospital transparency rule

Fewer than 6% of hospitals obeyed the price transparency rule during the early months of implementation, a new study shows.

Of the 5,239 hospitals studied, 13.9% had a machine-readable file but not a consumer-friendly display, 29.4% had a consumer-friendly display but no machine-readable file and only 5.7% had both, according to research published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Hospitals in unconcentrated…