Digital Debut

ASCA Pushes Back Against Misguided Price Transparency Mandates

The association joins other healthcare organizations to oppose the requirements

BY DAVID OPONG-WADEE | OCTOBER 31, 2025

The Patients Deserve Price Tags Act (S. 2355/H.R. 5582), introduced in the Senate in July by Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) and the House in September by Representative John James (R-MI), is the latest proposal in Congress that seeks to impose hospital-style price transparency requirements on ASCs. While ASCA unequivocally supports transparency that enables patients to make informed decisions, the current legislative push risks imposing significant new administrative complexity without delivering genuinely useful data to consumers.

What Is in the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act?

This most recent push for new federal price transparency requirements on ASCs pulls from certain old ideas. The Patients Deserve Price Tags Act would require ASCs to compile and make public the following: one or more machine-readable format lists of the standard charges for each item and service furnished by the facility; information on the prices for as many of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)-specified shoppable services that are furnished by the facility, and as many additional ASC-selected shoppable services as may be necessary for a combined total of at least 300 shoppable services (or all such additional services, if the ASC furnishes fewer than 300 shoppable services); and an indication that the ASC does not provide such service for each CMS-specified shoppable service not furnished by the ASC.

As part of the requirement that ASCs make available a list of standard charges for all items and services furnished by the facility, the legislation would require ASCs to make available, among other information, the payer-specific negotiated charges and the de-identified maximum and minimum negotiated charges for each item or service.

ASCA’s Advocacy Against the Act

ASCA co-led a coalition effort at the beginning of the 119th Congress highlighting opposition to provisions that appeared in the Health Care Prices Revealed and Information to Consumers Explained Transparency Act (S. 3548) from the 118th Congress and reappeared in the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act. This effort involved 10 other healthcare organizations, including the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, sending a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP). The letter detailed significant concerns regarding proposed federal price transparency legislation.

ASCA and the other signatories pointed out that the most valuable and relevant price information for patients already exists. Current mandates under the Affordable Care Act require health plans to provide detailed, plan-specific cost information to their enrollees. This data, which includes negotiated rates, allowed amounts and patient-specific cost-sharing details, is available via online tools and upon request. This is the only information that enables a patient to estimate their out-of-pocket costs before a procedure.

Additionally, the coalition highlighted that requiring ASCs to make available payer-specific negotiated charges would require significant ASC administrative resources because when an ASC contracts with a payer, that payer could have several different plans each with a different negotiated rate. Imposing this requirement on ASCs also fails to provide patients with an accurate estimate of the full price of services: ASCs control just one aspect of the costs of healthcare services or procedures provided in their facility—the facility fee—which does not reflect the total cost of care. Alternatively, a patient seeking information about their cost of care at an ASC would receive the most comprehensive information from tools provided by their insurance company.

Surgery centers operate with naturally leaner infrastructure and thinner margins than hospitals. Unlike large hospital systems that can absorb massive compliance costs, small and independent ASCs would be disproportionately harmed by excessive mandates, diverting resources away from patient care.

ASCA’s advocacy continues to underscore a fundamental flaw in these proposals: the belief that providers—rather than payers—control the most important cost information. Insurers already control the data needed to evaluate the total cost of care, including site-of-service variation and patient acuity.

ASCA remains focused on promoting constructive transparency that truly benefits patients, while firmly opposing this and similar efforts that attempt to shift the entire burden of cost containment onto providers without holding payers accountable or addressing the root drivers of healthcare inflation.

For questions or additional information about ASCA’s federal legislative efforts, please write David Opong‑Wadee at dopongwadee@ascassociation.org.