By: Jon Jablon, Esq.

If you’ve dabbled in reference-based pricing, or RBP, then you know about the legal and business challenges involved. From the inability to compel providers to bill reasonably to the difficulty in settling at a mutually-agreeable rate, RBP is tough. There’s a lot to it, and the law has always been on the side of the providers, making fighting the good fight just that much more difficult.

Recently, however, the Texas Supreme Court (in In Re North Cypress Medical Center Operating Co., Ltd., No. 16-0851, 2018 WL 1974376 [Tex. Apr. 27, 2018]) has ventured a change from its historical position, and has indicated that “…because of the way chargemaster pricing has evolved, the charges themselves are not dispositive of what is reasonable, irrespective of whether the patient being charged has insurance.” Historically, Texas courts have opined that the chargemaster is somehow the reasonable price of services.

This case indicates that evidence of accepted rates (from all payers) is in fact relevant to determining the reasonable value of medical services; although this case doesn’t actually determine the reasonable value or assign any relative weight to the amounts paid, it is a stepping stone that RBP plans can use to try to enforce their payment amounts and perhaps induce more reasonable settlements.

To be sure, the court indicated that “[t]he reimbursement rates sought, taken together, reflect the amounts the hospital is willing to accept from the vast majority of its patients as payment in full for such services. While not dispositive, such amounts are at least relevant to what constitutes a reasonable charge.” In other words, amounts the hospital accepts from all payers are relevant – but “not dispositive,” such that no one accepted amount is conclusively considered reasonable simply by virtue of having been accepted in the past. The Texas Supreme Court’s opinion that those amounts are even relevant, however, is a big step, and presents RBP plans with a valuable tool.

According to the court, “[w]e fail to see how the amounts a hospital accepts as payment from most of its patients are wholly irrelevant to the reasonableness of its charges to other patients for the same services.” We concur! This decision gives health plans some ammunition to counter the popular hospital opinion that Medicare rates are not relevant (since arguably they’re not “negotiated” but are instead forced upon the hospital by the government). We have always argued that no hospital is required to accept Medicare payments, but hospitals choose to because presumably those payments are valuable and worthwhile; we expect this case to help the argument that Medicare rates must be considered relevant when determining reasonable value – and the chargemaster rates themselves are all but meaningless.