Greater transparency in healthcare pricing can reduce hidden cost burdens, helping patients, especially those in underserved, low-income, or immigrant communities, make more informed decisions about their care. By clearing opaque pricing practices, the order offers potential to improve health equity through cost control and better access. However, if price data is not accessible, understandable, or paired with interventions that improve access, populations with healthcare barriers, lower income, lower health literacy or limited digital access may continue to face inequities.
Executive Office of the President - White House Office
A directive issued by the President that manages operations of the federal government. Executive orders have the force of law but must align with existing statutes and constitutional authority.
Who It Impacts: Federal agencies and employees, directing them on how to implement laws or carry out government functions. Executive orders can also influence businesses and individuals when they relate to issues like immigration, trade, or labor policies.
Who Is Not Impacted: Private citizens and businesses do not have to directly follow an executive order unless it leads to regulations or policies that apply to them. For example, an executive order directing federal agencies to increase renewable energy use does not mandate action from private companies, but it may influence policy shifts that eventually affect them.
Date Enacted
February 25, 2025
Last Updated
December 2, 2025
Policy Type
Cash or Economic Assistance
Healthcare Coverage
Healthcare Delivery, Services & Quality
Research and Data
Children and Families
Health and Disability
Immigrant Health
Summary
This executive order directs federal agencies to enhance and enforce healthcare price transparency, requiring actual (not estimated) prices, standardization across providers and insurers, and stronger accountability mechanisms to empower patients with meaningful cost information and promote affordability and competition.
Impact Analysis
Legal Challenges
N/A
Take Institutional Action
Healthcare providers, insurers, and health equity organizations can take strategic steps now. First, health systems and hospitals must review and strengthen internal pricing transparency practices, ensuring that patients can see actual out-of-pocket costs, not just estimates, and that online tools are accessible and intelligible for all populations.
Insurers should audit the clarity of cost tools, ensure standardized price disclosures, and pay special attention to how benefit design affects marginalized groups (such as those with limited digital access, non-English speakers, or low-income).
Public health departments and community-based organizations should educate and support vulnerable populations to understand and utilize price data, especially those historically excluded from transparent care pricing.
Advocacy groups should push for standardized, user-friendly cost-information formats, monitor enforcement of transparency rules in underserved areas (rural clinics, safety-net hospitals) to ensure that the data produced is actionable for communities facing the largest cost burdens.
Associated or Derivative Policies
Builds on the earlier Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First (June 2019), which required hospitals and plans to post shoppable service pricing and machine-readable files. This order directs the Secretaries of the Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services to update guidance, standardize pricing disclosures, and enforce compliance, anticipating further regulatory action.
Policy Prior to 2025
Before this order, federal rules (such as the 2019 order/rules) required hospitals to post standard service charges and health plans to disclose negotiated rates. However, compliance was inconsistent, enforcement was weak, and many patients still lacked clear cost information.
Additional Resources
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Treasury announce move to strengthen healthcare price transparency (May 2025)
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