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Senate Health & Welfare weighs S.190 on reference‑based pricing and hospital outsourcing
Summary
Testimony on S.190 focused on standardizing reference‑based price reporting and the bill's treatment of outsourced clinical groups; hospitals and independent physician groups warned broad audit or budget‑folding provisions could disrupt rural staffing while regulators said targeted transparency and phased modeling may mitigate risks.
The Senate Health & Welfare committee heard hours of testimony on S.190, a bill that would require hospitals to report certain prices as a percentage of Medicare and tighten oversight of clinical services outsourced to independent provider groups.
Debbie Green, representing the Vermont Association of Hospital and Health Systems, told the committee that "Conceptually, we do not have a problem with that" when describing the bill’s reporting requirement for reference‑based pricing, but she urged clearer standards and a single source of truth so hospitals report consistently. Green said detailed, standardized guidance from the Green Mountain Care Board could avoid inconsistent postings and protect the transparency goals of the bill.
Green also challenged parts of the bill that deal with outsourced clinical services. She said hospitals have been "very upfront" about outsourcing arrangements and warned that folding independent groups’ revenue into hospital budgets or capping those companies could make Vermont less attractive to partner organizations. "We want to make sure…
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