What do medical procedures cost? Most Pa. hospitals aren’t following price transparency rules.

Only one in five Pennsylvania hospitals is doing enough to make sure patients can find the prices of medical procedures on their websites, an analysis by a patient advocacy group has found.

Patient Rights Advocate, a group that advocates for price transparency, looked to see how many hospitals across the nation are fully complying with a federal price transparency rule that went into effect in 2021. It requires hospitals to post “machine-readable files,” such as a downloadable Excel spreadsheet, with prices for every procedure under every insurance plan accepted at the hospital.

Most hospitals in the Philadelphia area are meeting the requirement to post a spreadsheet of prices that can be downloaded, but many are incomplete, according to a report released by the organization last month.

For instance, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has a spreadsheet of prices by insurance plan on its website. But upon opening, a viewer would see a majority of price fields are filled with hash symbols.

CHOP said it is in full compliance with the price transparency requirements. Patients can see dollar values by expanding the price column or clicking on the individual field in the spreadsheet.

The rule is supposed to make it easier for patients to shop around for medical care by enabling them to see prices for common services and compare rates between hospitals.

» READ MORE: A progress check on hospital price transparency

The information can also be useful when patients receive a bill that’s higher than they anticipated, said Ilaria Santangelo, the organization’s director of research. People can compare the prices they were charged to the rates listed on the hospital’s website.

Federal health officials began fining noncompliant hospitals earlier this year, but has so far only cited 14, none in Pennsylvania.

Patient Rights Advocate considered a hospital noncompliant if more than half of the price fields in its spreadsheet were empty, or contained anything other than a dollar value, such as dashes or hashes.

“We understand that a hospital isn’t going to have prices for every item and service they offer, but when the majority of the file doesn’t have prices, that raises concerns,” Santangelo said.

Even within the same system, price reporting varies.

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital landed on Patient Rights Advocate’s noncompliant list because the hospital’s price spreadsheet does not break down prices for every health plan. Spreadsheets must include prices for every health plan accepted — even when the hospital accepts multiple plans from the same insurer.

Jefferson Abington Hospital, meanwhile, is fully compliant because it lists prices for each individual plan.

Jefferson did not respond to a request for comment.

Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Pennsylvania Hospital, Bryn Mawr Hospital, Lankenau Medical Center, Torresdale Hospital, and Frankford Hospital are among the Philadelphia-area institutions that the Patient Rights Advocate determined were fully compliant.