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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 5, 2026
Contact: CMS Media Relations
(202) 690-6145 | CMS Media Inquiries
New Regulations Make It Easier to Find, Compare, and Report Healthcare Pricing and Coverage Information
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), today announced that Americans will have access to more reliable, accessible, and actionable information about what their health coverage includes and what they are likely to pay before receiving care under new regulations that strengthen federal healthcare price transparency requirements. The actions taken today to create a more transparent healthcare marketplace also ensure employers can make more informed decisions; researchers can better understand healthcare markets; and innovators can build better tools.
“Americans should know what their healthcare will cost before they receive it,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “President Trump directed us to bring real price transparency to healthcare, and HHS is delivering. These rules give patients clearer, more reliable information to compare costs, understand their coverage, and make informed decisions before they receive care.”
“Greater transparency drives competition, reduces price disparities, and helps lower healthcare costs, a key priority for the Trump Administration,” said CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. “At the heart of this rule is a simple idea: People should know what their health insurance will cover and what they will need to pay before receiving medical care, not after the bill arrives.”
Updates to the Transparency in Coverage (TiC) rules, finalized today by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), in partnership with the Departments of Labor and the Treasury (the Departments), build on the historic health care price transparency rules established during President Trump’s first term.
The final rules improve the underlying healthcare pricing data by reducing duplicative and unnecessary information, providing more context about in-network prices, increasing available out-of-network pricing information, and strengthening accountability for the completeness and accuracy of published data. Reporting frequency for pricing information will change from monthly to quarterly, maintaining meaningful transparency while lowering administrative burden.
The rules also require group health plans and health insurance issuers to provide consumers with personalized cost-sharing information by phone, in addition to existing online tools.
These improvements will help technology developers build better consumer tools, give consumers more reliable information when comparing costs before receiving care, and enable employers and researchers to better analyze healthcare markets, all of which will help drive competition across the healthcare industry.
“Transparency is a pillar of the Trump Administration’s efforts to drive better value in healthcare,” said Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling, “Today’s final rules will enhance the Transparency in Coverage (TiC) files already in existence, giving workers and employers alike a clearer view of their true healthcare costs.”
“Healthcare price transparency is common sense,” said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson. “But only President Donald Trump, with assists from Secretary Kennedy, Secretary Sonderling and Dr. Oz, decided to actually make it happen. Today’s announcements follow a basic but important principle: Consumers should always have as much information as possible.”
The Departments plan to begin development of the initial schema for the Prescription Drug File in November 2026 and will finalize it on or around May 2027. Plans and issuers will be expected to publish their Prescription Drug Files using this schema starting in December 2027 and monthly thereafter.
Today’s announcement builds on the original TiC regulations established during President Trump’s first term. This work allowed for continued refinement to TiC requirements that have improved the usability of pricing data, enabling developers to build more accurate tools for consumers, employers, researchers, and industry. Recent data have found that the top 25% of the most expensive healthcare service prices have dropped by 6.3% per year following the initial implementation of price transparency requirements on hospitals and health plans.
Today’s final rules support Executive Order 14221, Making America Healthy Again by Empowering Patients with Clear, Accurate, and Actionable Healthcare Pricing Information.
To view the final rules, visit: https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2026-20447/transparency-in-coverage
To read the CMS fact sheet, including implementation dates, visit: https://edit.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/transparency-coverage-final-rules-cms-9882-f
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