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Senate panel weighs reference‑based pricing and rules for hospital outsourcing
Summary
The Senate Health & Welfare committee reviewed S.190, which would require hospitals to express rates as a percentage of Medicare, publish machine‑readable files with those percentages, and set default Medicare‑based price caps for new CPT codes. Witnesses urged careful timing, clearer definitions for outsourced clinical departments, and collaborative rulemaking.
The Senate Health & Welfare committee on Feb. 25 examined S.190, a bill directing the Green Mountain Care Board to advance reference‑based pricing and to tighten rules around hospitals outsourcing clinical services.
Supporters said the bill creates a clearer, comparable way to present hospital prices and could be an important first step toward slowing cost growth. ‘‘You need to think about where you want to be in three to five years,’’ Mike Fisher, Healthcare Advocate, told the committee, urging multi‑year targets and careful modeling so the state hits a middle — roughly the sixth decile compared with national benchmarks — rather than an extreme reduction that could destabilize rural hospitals.
The bill’s main provisions in…
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