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A milestone just passed with less noise than it deserved. According to rater8’s 2026 Patient Choice Report, covered this month in Medical Economics, AI tools are now a bigger influence on how patients choose a doctor than a referral from another physician. Among patients who actually switched providers, AI ranked ahead of every other source…

A Denver man flew to Phoenix for a neurosurgery consultation after being told the clinic was in network. On arrival he was routed to the financial office and told to put down a $5,000 deposit before anyone would see him, according to reporting from KFF Health News published in Modern Healthcare. Shortly before the visit,…

Buried in the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions’ 2026 Pulse of the Purchaser survey is a trend line moving in a direction nobody predicted. Employer concern about the reasonableness of hospital charges as a fiduciary matter has fallen from 68% in 2023 to roughly 33% today. Concern about hospital billing integrity dropped by a…

Employers expect healthcare costs to rise an average of 7.7% next year before plan design changes, and one in three expect increases of 9% or more, according to the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions’ 2026 Pulse of the Purchaser survey.   Here is the finding that should reframe every conversation in our industry: the…

Negotiated rates are public. So why are out-of-network claims still priced like it’s 2010? Four years into the Transparency in Coverage era, negotiated rates for every commercial payer in the country are published, machine-readable, and refreshed monthly. Yet most out-of-network claims are still priced the way they were before any of that data existed: legacy…

The Price Transparency Enforcement Gap: Hospitals Got the Warning. Health Plans and TPAs Are Next.   This month, the Associated Press reported that federal regulators warned more than 500 hospitals to fix their price transparency data or face fines of up to $2 million a year. The list the AP obtained covers 519 enforcement actions…

The No Surprises Act arbitration system is producing results Congress never intended — and the fix isn’t more rules. It’s better data.   A plastic surgeon in New York just won $440,000 in a single arbitration case for a breast reduction his own website advertises at $15,000 to $25,000. He’s won more than 85% of…

The proposed CMS-9882-P rule seeks to address structural limitations in current Transparency in Coverage (TiC) machine-readable files (MRFs) by improving usability, reducing file sizes, and introducing greater standardization. TALON strongly supports the Departments’ effort to reform the structural failures of the current transparency framework. While the proposal represents meaningful progress, additional requirements around context, accountability,…

For more than a decade, the movement toward consumer-directed healthcare has empowered individuals to take a more active role in how they spend their healthcare dollars. High-deductible health plans (HDHPs), the Transparency in Coverage Rule, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 laid important groundwork, improving consumer awareness, reshaping benefit design, and driving a fundamental…

When employers and employees share transparent information, fair incentives, and a smooth way to earn rewards, everyone makes smarter choices — TALON’s MyMedicalRewards and TALONPay make that alignment real. Why Alignment Matters Now For millions of American employees, healthcare decisions have become one of the most confusing and financially stressful parts of life. Even the…