July 20, 2021 / Susan Morse, Managing Editor
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is proposing to increase the penalty for hospitals that do not comply with the Hospital Price Transparency final rule.
CMS wants to set a minimum civil monetary penalty of $300 per day for smaller hospitals that have a bed count of 30 or fewer and apply a penalty of $10/bed/day for hospitals with a bed count greater than 30, not to exceed a maximum daily dollar amount of $5,500. 
The former penalty was a maximum of $300 per day.
Under this proposed approach, for a full calendar year of noncompliance, the minimum total penalty amount would be $109,500 per hospital, and the maximum total penalty amount would be $2,007,500 per hospital.
The action was released in CMS’s Hospital Outpatient Prospective System and Ambulatory Surgical Center proposed rule for 2022.
