Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Healthcare Transparency topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee suspends action and re-refers bill seeking standardized healthcare price files after insurer, industry concerns
Summary
House Bill 705 would require standardized, machine-readable cost-and-coverage files from health plans to improve statewide price transparency and feed the state's New Hampshire Health Cost website. Insurance department officials supported standardization; carriers urged waiting for federal guidance and complained about high implementation costs.
House Bill 705, introduced to require standardized, machine-readable price-and-coverage files from health plans to improve health care cost transparency, was discussed at length in a Senate Health and Human Services hearing on April 16. The committee later voted to re-refer the bill for further work after insurers and the insurance department raised timing and technical concerns.
What the bill would do: HB 705 would require insurers to submit three machine-readable files: (1) allowed amounts for in-network professional and facility services by provider; (2) maximum out-of-network payment schedules; and (3) prescription-drug pricing information including insurer-paid amounts and average negotiated prices after rebates. The bill seeks a standardized format so files from multiple plans can be compiled into market-wide comparisons and to make files publicly available for private-sector tools.
Why it matters: The New Hampshire Insurance Department said the state's existing New Hampshire Health Cost site lists only a limited set of services (roughly a few hundred) because the department must rely on claims data; standardized insurer files would significantly expand the actionable pricing data available to consumers and the department.
Insurer concerns and timing: Carriers and trade groups, including AHIP and Cigna representatives, said the federal government is revising its own transparency rules following an executive order and a 90-day review; they cautioned that imposing state-specific statutory formats before federal guidance could impose substantial technical costs, duplication and uncertainty. Anthem and other insurers said the files are expensive to produce, require new computing capabilities, and currently exist in multiple inconsistent formats. Several witnesses recommended waiting for finalized federal rules and seeking collaborative, standardized formats.
Committee action: After discussion the committee voted to re-refer HB 705 for further consideration (executive session), giving committee staff and stakeholders additional time to align state requirements with expected federal guidance. The Insurance Department said it could continue stakeholder work and that a delayed schedule would be acceptable.
