Montana State Legislature

HJR 20

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HJR 20: Health Care Price Transparency

The 2017 Legislature approved House Joint Resolution 20 requesting a study of transparency in health care pricing. The study was the top-ranked study in a post-session poll asking legislators to prioritize the 20 study resolutions approved in 2017.

HJR 20 asked that the committee look into the following items:

  • factors influencing the cost of health care services, including differences attributable to different delivery system models;
  • efforts undertaken in other states and by organizations within Montana to make health care cost information more widely available to consumers;
  • ways to improve consumer understanding of the different factors affecting the costs that are charged and the costs they must pay;
  • ways to encourage consumers to make informed health care decisions;
  • existing price transparency tools and health quality measures;
  • ways to ensure that price transparency efforts give consumers information about both costs and quality of services; and
  • the role of the state in improving health care price transparency.

The committee decided at its June 2017 meeting to have a subcommittee made up of legislators and members of the public work on this study during the interim. Rep. Kathy Kelker was appointed presiding officer of the subcommittee, which met for the first time on Sept. 12, 2017. At that meeting, members focused on trends and factors in health care costs. At a January 2018 meeting, members reviewed pricing and reimbursement for health care services and also learned about model cost reduction plans. In February, the subcommittee discussed items that consumer want to know about health care prices, learned about the complexity of the medical billing process, and reviewed existing transparency tools operated by health care providers and insurers.

The subcommittee held its final meeting on March 21 and recommended that the Children and Families Committee:

  • offer strong support for the maturing of the Montana Health Insurance Exchange;
  • seek advice from the Office of Public Instruction concerning health literacy for high school students;
  • not pursue committee legislation on transparency tools or additional state guidelines for price transparency;
  • allow individual legislators to develop legislation to clarify consumer responsibility for out-of-network bills and balance bills, perhaps by starting with the originally amended version of House Bill 123 from 2017; and
  • pursue options for reducing prescription drug costs by hearing in June about the State Auditor's Office work on this topic and possibly following up on that information.

The full committee accepted all recommendations except the one related to prescription drug costs. For a copy of the letter sent to OPI, click here. The committee approved a final report on the study at its June 2018 meeting.

Study Reports

Pre-Meeting Reading Materials

Related Links and Study Materials

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