This bill amends Florida’s price-transparency law for licensed health care facilities to specifically address ambulatory surgical centers. It requires these centers to provide patients and prospective patients with a timely good faith estimate of reasonably anticipated charges for nonemergency services, including information about financial assistance policies, payment plans, charity care, facility fees, and the possibility that other providers in the facility may separately bill the patient. The estimate must be updated if revised and must be provided to both the patient and the patient’s health insurer within the bill’s specified timeframes.
The bill also creates a penalty for ambulatory surgical centers that fail to timely provide the required estimate: a daily fine of $250 until the estimate is delivered, capped at $2,500 per patient estimate. For hospitals, the existing penalty structure remains in place at $1,000 per day, capped at $10,000. In addition, the bill delays the effectiveness of these state-law changes until the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury issue a final federal rule on good faith estimates under the Public Health Service Act, and it directs the Agency for Health Care Administration to notify the Division of Law Revision when that rule is adopted.
Impact
The bill would amend section 395.301, Florida Statutes, expanding and clarifying patient price-transparency requirements for ambulatory surgical centers and reinforcing compliance through a specific civil penalty. It affects licensed ambulatory surgical centers, patients, health insurers, and the Agency for Health Care Administration, while leaving the broader hospital estimate penalty framework intact. The practical effect is to strengthen advance cost disclosure for outpatient surgery and align Florida’s requirements with anticipated federal good-faith-estimate rules.
Sentiment
The available vote history suggests broad support for the measure: it passed the House Health Care Facilities & Systems Subcommittee unanimously, 17-0. No committee transcript is provided, but the unanimous vote indicates the bill was generally viewed favorably and not especially controversial at that stage. The bill’s focus on transparency, consumer information, and billing clarity likely contributed to the positive reception.
Contention
The main policy issue is not whether patients should receive cost estimates, but how strictly and how quickly ambulatory surgical centers should be required to provide them, and what penalty should apply for noncompliance. The bill distinguishes ambulatory surgical centers from hospitals by imposing a lower daily fine and lower cap, which may reflect concern about proportionality and the operational differences between facility types. Another point of potential contention is the bill’s delayed effectiveness, which ties implementation to future federal rulemaking; supporters may see this as necessary coordination, while critics could view it as postponing consumer protections.