Trump administration announces new additions to hospital price transparency regulations

The Trump administration announced new amendments Monday to the hospital price transparency rules enacted during President Trump’s first term, aimed at making pricing data more accessible and understandable for patients.

The rule finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Employee Benefits Security Administration and the IRS builds on the federal rule that requires hospitals to publish their prices in a machine-readable file so patients can find and compare the cost of services beforehand.

The new rule was first proposed in December 2025.

Under the updates to the Transparency in Coverage rules , files with pricing information must be standardized and easily comparable between hospitals, insurers must attest that the information on the files is accurate and complete to the best of their knowledge, and any pricing information that’s made available online or on paper is required to be made available over the phone.

Administration officials announced plans to roll out a price schema for prescription drugs, a blueprint for a file that health plans must use to disclose negotiated drug prices. The finalized rule for this requirement is expected to be published by May of next year.

The initial hospital price transparency rule went into effect at the start of 2021, but hospitals have been slow to fully comply with the requirements of the rule. A report published by Patient Rights Advocate in September found that 49.4 percent of surveyed hospitals were in full compliance.

Peter Nelson, deputy administrator and director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, said at a press conference hosted at HHS headquarters Monday that the initial rule had been stymied by overly large files that were hard to navigate and often contained duplicative data.

“Simply put, you basically need supercomputer to process the data, which has limited who can work with the data,” Nelson said. “The improvements in this final rule largely involve addressing issues with the structure of the data files.”

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at the event that the new rules would reduce file sizes of pricing data by 70 percent.

“The results will be better information for the people who need it. Patients will be better able to compare what care costs before they receive it, and lawyers will be better able to judge whether the insurers that they hire are negotiating the best prices for their workers, and researchers will be able to identify price disparities and study where the market is failing and where the system is failing,” Kennedy said.

“The American people pay for this care system, and they have the right to know the prices. The prices do not belong to the hospitals. They don’t belong to the insurance companies. They belong to the American people and the consumers,” he added.