Insurers will probably go tocourt to challenge the rules, just as hospital systems are expectedto do on price disclosure rules affecting them.

One of the big unknowns in health care coverage is always howmuch any given incident will cost the consumer out of pocket. And anew rule proposed by federal agencies, set to be published in the Federal Register November 27,would require employer-sponsored group health plans to provide planenrollees with estimates of their out-of-pocket expenses for services fromdifferent health care providers.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, theinformation would be available to enrollees via an onlineself-service tool so people could shop around before they get care,instead of being hit with the final total after the fact. Commentsare due by January 14, 2020.

Related: How much do families spend on out-of-pocket healthcare costs?

It's expected that insurers will oppose the plan, according toCarrie B. Cherveny, senior vice president of strategic clientsolutions for global insurance brokerage Hub International's riskservices division, who told SHRM that "the rules aroundpublic disclosure will likely be opposed by health insurancecarriers who view their price negotiation as confidential and partof the service that they provide as carriers."

Cherveny also said that insurers will probably go to court tochallenge the rules, just as hospital systems are expected to do onprice disclosure rules affecting them.

Employers might not be too happy about the proposal by thedepartments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury,either, according to Susan Nash, a partner at law firm Winston& Strawn in Chicago.

Nash said that although employers generally welcome actions toimprove price transparency, they "may balk at the cost of preparingthe online or mobile app-based cost-estimator tools, or purchasingsuch tools from vendors."

And since the information will be plan-specific, they'll alsohave to coordinate more closely with "third-party administrators,pharmacy benefit managers, [and] disease management, behavioralhealth, utilization review, and other specialty vendors and [theprocess] will require amendments to existing agreements."

While plans grandfathered under the Affordable Care Act will beexempt, all others will have to provide out-of-pocket costs for allcovered health care items and services available to enrollees via aself-service website (available on paper if requested, in a formatsimilar to an explanation of benefits notice). They will also haveto make publicly available the in-network rates they negotiate withthe plan's network providers, in addition to past payments alreadymade to out-of-network providers—and update the informationmonthly.

Read more: 

• Health providers balk at new proposal to discloseprices
• Hospitals must post real prices starting in2021
• Lower-cost care settings don't stem risingout-of-pocket costs