Florida Urgent Care Clinics Must Post Prices in Lobby by Friday (06/29/2011)

The Florida House passed a bill this month that requires urgent care clinics in the state of Florida to conspicuously post the prices of their 50 most frequently provided services on a 15-square-foot sign. The deadline to comply is Friday; those who do not post their prices will be fined up to $1,000 a day.

The goal of the bill, which was sponsored by State Representative Richard Corcoran, is to make pricing for medical services more transparent for self-pay patients. In an interview with the St. Petersburg Times, Rep. Corcoran said his experiences with trying to find out the cost of an MRI test for his wife’s back pain was a “driving force” behind the bill. “When you’re paying the first $10,000 out of pocket, the first thing you ask is, ‘what’s the cost?’” he told the St. Petersburg Times.

As well-intentioned as the bill may be, it has been met with some push-back from doctors who feel pricing for medical services is too complex to simply list on a sign. How will it help patients to know that a 99201 is $49 or a 99214 is $92 when other factors could change the cost of their visit?

The bill, however, will do nothing to help patients get cash pricing on big ticket items; it simply requires urgent care centers to post their cash-pay prices. Nevertheless, Florida’s urgent care centers have only two days left to comply.

View a summary of HB 935

View the full text of HB 935