Fat Joe is excited to host the upcoming BET Hip Hop Awards and wants it to be a memorable night. However, over the past few months he’s been vocal about another issue - transparency in healthcare prices.
Though healthcare providers were supposed to start publishing the information over a year ago, the rapper alleges that the law isn’t being enforced and hospitals are still “robbing” their patients.
What Hospitals Are Supposed To Do
In January 2021, it became mandatory for hospitals to post the prices they have negotiated with insurers as well as any discounts that are offered to patients who are able to pay cash.
The rules expanded in July to include health insurers. By law, the insurers must publish the prices they have negotiated with all medical facilities and doctors. Those who don’t comply with the rules can face daily fines until they satisfy the regulations.
While a fine of $300 per day was established at the time the rules were put in place, it has since been upgraded to $5,500 for certain larger hospitals.
The idea behind this requirement is that people will be able to make more informed decisions about their healthcare and the providers will be forced to have more streamlined prices moving forward. It would hopefully, eliminate the significant variation in costs across the country. It was noted that the figures provided might not be completely accurate for all procedures, but it would be better than having no information at all.
What’s Been Happening
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In a recent ad, Fat Joe teamed up with the group ‘Power to the Patients’ to allege that no one was policing the system that was put in place to help patients. Those allegations led to some investigations into what was actually happening with the regulations.
The results showed that he might as well have been right. While the relevant agencies were keeping track of what hospitals and healthcare providers were in compliance with the rules, the timelines for compliance with the regulations gave them a lot of room to drag their feet.
For example, it can take months of non-compliance for a hospital to receive a warning letter. The hospital then has a further 90 days to respond to the letter.
If there is a reasonable explanation for why the hospital hasn’t submitted all the required information, the file may be closed without further investigation.
As a result, it took about 15 months after the rules were established before the first set of fines were issued. In the meantime, many patients still didn’t have the transparency they were promised.
The Way Forward
It might not be completely true that the transparency law isn’t being enforced, those in the industry admit that the current lag isn’t acceptable. With the expected learning curve out of the way, though, there should be more compliance in the future.
So far, hundreds of warning letters have been submitted and two hospitals in Georgia were issued fines totaling $1.1 million. Still, Fat Joe’s ad highlighted how long bureaucratic processes can take to truly make a difference.
Why Fat Joe Is Speaking Out
Fat Joe is no stranger to needing medical intervention.
Though he’s lost a lot of weight and is in a healthier place now, this wasn’t the case a decade ago. The talented rapper was known for being overweight just as much as his skills with a verse.
Those weight struggles led to being diagnosed with diabetes which he struggled to control. Even after getting to a healthier weight, he battled depression for a long time.
Given his medical history and that studies have shown the way healthcare systems can be skewed against people of color, Fat Joe is against any other issues that make it harder for people to get the treatment they need.
In a recent interview with TMZ, he mentioned that it was wrong that “millions across the country are being dragged into debt because they're blindsided by the cost of medical bills".
Though there is some evidence that the relevant agencies are enforcing the law regarding transparency in healthcare prices, it’s not going as quickly as many first hoped. Hopefully, more providers will be in compliance in the upcoming months so patients can have the information they need.
