What’s happening: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published resources to help hospitals implement hospital price transparency machine-readable file (MRF) requirements.
What else to know: As of July 1 of this year, hospitals are required to publish a comprehensive MRF containing the standard charges for all items and services provided by the hospital.
MRFs must conform to the required CMS template layout and data specifications as outlined in the calendar year 2024 outpatient prospective payment system final rule. Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, CMS will require that additional data elements are encoded in the MRF.
CMS will host a webinar on Oct. 21 from 10-11:30 a.m. (PT) to share best practices for meeting the current requirements and review the changes taking effect in January.
CMS has also published resources to help hospitals, including:
- Hospital Price Transparency Resources Web Page: Central location for guidance in the form of links to final rules, frequently asked questions, guides, and webinar materials
- CMS Hospital Price Transparency Data Dictionary GitHub Repository: Required CMS templates, corresponding data dictionary, examples of how to encode standard charges in the MRF, and a discussion board of questions and answers
- Hospital Price Transparency Tools Website: Contains the online validator, command-line interface validator, TXT file generator, and MRF naming convention tools
