Healthcare price transparency legislation is missing an important piece of information: who owns the providers, health policy experts wrote in Health Affairs.
In a piece published Sept. 22 in the journal, Yashaswini Singh, PhD, assistant professor of health services, policy and practice at the Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, R.I., and Erin Fuse Brown, director of the Center for Law, Health and Society at Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta, write that ownership transparency is an "essential tool" to lower healthcare costs.
Previous research shows factors like for-profit status, chain ownership, hospital affiliation and private equity ownership influence prices, spending and quality of care, Dr. Singh and Ms. Fuse Brown wrote.
Though ownership of a provider has an effect on pricing, there is no free, accessible, source of ownership data, the authors wrote.
Policymakers need access to more comprehensive provider ownership data, not just pricing data, to design effective solutions for lowering costs, Dr. Singh and Ms. Fuse wrote.
"In the absence of ownership transparency, relevant information on the organizational incentives of healthcare providers is missing. Filling these information gaps is crucial to design targeted policy responses to foster a high-value health system," they wrote.
Read the full piece here.