HOSPITAL PRICE TRANSPARENCY ACT

HB0244

HOUSE BILL 244

57th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - second session, 2026

INTRODUCED BY

Alan T. Martinez
and
Reena Szczepanski

and
Michelle Paulene Abeyta
and
Joshua N. Hernandez

AN ACT

RELATING TO HEALTH CARE; ENACTING THE HOSPITAL PRICE
TRANSPARENCY ACT; REQUIRING HOSPITALS TO PROVIDE PRICING
INFORMATION ON SERVICES AND ITEMS PROVIDED AT THE HOSPITALS;
REQUIRING THE HEALTH CARE AUTHORITY TO IMPLEMENT AND ADMINISTER
THE HOSPITAL PRICE TRANSPARENCY ACT; PROVIDING CONSUMERS AN
AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE TO COLLECTION ACTIONS; DECLARING A
VIOLATION OF THE HOSPITAL PRICE TRANSPARENCY ACT AS AN UNFAIR
OR DECEPTIVE TRADE PRACTICE.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:

SECTION 1.
[
NEW MATERIAL
] SHORT TITLE.--Sections 1
through 5 of this act may be cited as the "Hospital Price
Transparency Act".

SECTION 2.
[
NEW MATERIAL
] DEFINITIONS.--As used in the
Hospital Price Transparency Act:

A. "authority" means the health care authority;

B. "collection action" means any of the following
actions taken with respect to a debt for an item or service
that was purchased from or provided to a patient by a hospital
on a date during which the hospital was in violation of the
Hospital Price Transparency Act:

(1) attempting to collect a debt from a
patient or a patient's guarantor by referring the debt,
directly or indirectly, to a debt collector, a collection
agency or other third party retained by or on behalf of the
hospital;

(2) suing the patient or the patient's
guarantor or enforcing an arbitration or mediation clause in a
hospital document, including any contract, agreement, statement
or bill; or

(3) directly or indirectly causing a report to
be made to a consumer reporting agency;

C. "collection agency" means a person that:

(1) engages in a business for the principal
purpose of collecting debts; or

(2) does any of the following:

(a) regularly collects or attempts to
collect, directly or indirectly, debts owed or due or asserted
to be owed or due to another;

(b) takes assignment of debts for
collection purposes; or

(c) directly or indirectly solicits for
collection debts owed or due or asserted to be owed or due to
another;

D. "consumer reporting agency" means a person that,
for a monetary fee or dues or on a cooperative nonprofit basis,
regularly engages in the practice of assembling or evaluating
consumer credit information or other information on consumers
for the purpose of furnishing consumer reports to third
parties. "Consumer reporting agency" does not include business
entities that only provide check verification or check
guarantee services;

E. "debt" means an obligation or alleged obligation
of a consumer to pay money arising out of a transaction,
whether or not the obligation has been reduced to judgment.
"Debt" does not include a debt for business, investment,
commercial or agricultural purposes or a debt incurred by a
business;

F. "debt collector" means a person employed or
engaged by a collection agency to perform the collection of
debts owed or due or debts asserted to be owed or due to
another;

G. "hospital" means a public hospital, profit or
nonprofit private hospital or a general or special hospital
that is licensed as a hospital by the authority;

H. "machine-readable format" means a digital
representation of information in a file that can be easily
imported or read into a computer system for further processing
without any additional preparation;

I. "shoppable service" means a service that may be
scheduled by a person in advance;

J. "standard charge" means the regular rate
established by a hospital for a hospital item or service
provided to a specific group of paying patients. "Standard
charge" includes the:

(1) charge for a hospital item or service that
is reflected on the hospital's chargemaster, absent of any
discount;

(2) charge that a hospital has negotiated with
a third-party payor for a hospital item or service;

(3) highest charge that a hospital has
negotiated with all third-party payors for a hospital item or
service;

(4) lowest charge that a hospital has
negotiated with all third-party payors for a hospital item or
service; and

(5) charge that applies to a person who pays
cash or a cash equivalent for a hospital item or service; and

K. "third-party payor" means an entity that is
legally responsible for payment of a claim for a hospital item
or service.

SECTION 3.
[
NEW MATERIAL
] PUBLIC AVAILABILITY OF PRICE
INFORMATION REQUIRED.--

A. Each hospital shall publish the following on the
hospital's publicly accessible website:

(1) a digital file in a machine-readable
format that displays the standard charges for the hospital's
items or services in dollar amounts; and

(2) either:

(a) a consumer-friendly list that
contains information for at least three hundred shoppable
services provided by the hospital with charges displayed in
dollar amounts specific to that individual hospital location;
or

(b) an internet-based price estimator
tool that allows patients to generate personalized cost
estimates for items or services and is consistent with
regulations and guidance promulgated by the federal centers for
medicare and medicaid services pursuant to the federal Public
Health Service Act.

B. The information provided on a hospital's website
pursuant to Subsection A of this section shall be formatted and
presented in a manner consistent with federal centers for
medicare and medicaid services regulations and guidance
promulgated pursuant to the federal Public Health Service Act.

SECTION 4.
[
NEW MATERIAL
] ENFORCEMENT.--

A. A hospital shall be in violation of the Hospital
Price Transparency Act if the hospital:

(1) fails to take immediate action to remedy a
failure to comply with the provisions of the Hospital Price
Transparency Act;

(2) fails to submit a plan of correction in
accordance with the requirements of this section;

(3) fails to comply with a plan of correction;
or

(4) violates an order previously issued by the
authority in a disciplinary matter.

B. The authority may:

(1) audit a hospital's website to ensure
compliance with the Hospital Price Transparency Act; and

(2) establish a process to allow individuals
the ability to submit complaints for alleged noncompliance with
the Hospital Price Transparency Act.

C. Upon determining that a hospital is not in
compliance with the provisions of the Hospital Price
Transparency Act, the authority shall issue a written notice to
the hospital stating that a violation has been committed by the
hospital. The written notice shall:

(1) state that the hospital is required to
take immediate action to remedy the noncompliance or, if the
hospital is unable to immediately remedy the noncompliance,
submit a plan of correction to the authority; and

(2) state that the hospital is required to
provide prompt confirmation to the authority that the
corrective action has been taken.

D. If a hospital is required to submit a plan of
correction to the authority, the authority may direct that the
noncompliance be remedied within a specified period of time.
The hospital shall submit the plan of correction within thirty
days of the authority's issuance of the written notice.

E. A hospital that is not in compliance with the
Hospital Price Transparency Act on the date when an item or
service is provided to a patient shall not initiate or pursue a
collection action against the patient or the patient's
guarantor for a debt owed for the item or service if the item
or service is related to the noncompliance.

F. A patient or a patient's guarantor may establish
an affirmative defense against any collection action initiated
by a hospital by demonstrating that the:

(1) hospital was not in compliance with the
Hospital Price Transparency Act on the date when an item or
service involved in the collection action was provided; and

(2) item or service that is subject to the
collection action is related to the hospital's noncompliance.

G. If a patient or a patient's guarantor
successfully establishes an affirmative defense to a collection
action pursuant to Subsection F of this section, the court
shall order the hospital that initiated the collection action
to:

(1) dismiss the collection action with
prejudice;

(2) refund the payor for all payments made
toward the debt at issue in the collection action;

(3) pay any attorney fees and costs incurred
by the patient or the patient's guarantor relating to the
action; and

(4) remove or cause to be removed from the
patient's or the patient's guarantor's credit report a report
made to a consumer reporting agency relating to the debt.

SECTION 5.
[
NEW MATERIAL
] INFORMATION REQUIRED TO BE
PROVIDED TO PATIENTS.--Prior to commencing a collection action,
a hospital or a debt collector acting on behalf of a hospital
shall provide a patient with:

A. an easy-to-understand itemized statement of the
debt owed by the patient to the hospital, which shall include
the applicable billing codes for each item or service, using
commonly recognized billing code sets;

B. a copy of the detailed receipts of any payments
made to the hospital or debt collector by the patient or the
patient's guarantor within thirty days of each payment;

C. information about the availability of language-assistance services for persons with limited proficiency in
English; and

D. the contact information for an office or
individual at the hospital that can:

(1) discuss the specific details of an
itemized statement; and

(2) make appropriate changes to the statement.

SECTION 6.
Section 57-12-2 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 1967,
Chapter 268, Section 2, as amended) is amended to read:

"57-12-2. DEFINITIONS.--As used in the Unfair Practices
Act:

A. "person" means, where applicable, natural
persons, corporations, trusts, partnerships, associations,
cooperative associations, clubs, companies, firms, joint
ventures or syndicates;

B. "seller-initiated telephone sale" means a sale,
lease or rental of goods or services in which the seller or the
seller's representative solicits the sale by telephoning the
prospective purchaser and in which the sale is consummated
entirely by telephone or mail, but does not include a
transaction:

(1) in which a person solicits a sale from a
prospective purchaser who has previously made an authorized
purchase from the seller's business; or

(2) in which the purchaser is accorded

the right of rescission by the provisions of the federal
Consumer Credit Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. 1635, or regulations
issued pursuant thereto;

C. "trade" or "commerce" includes the advertising,
offering for sale or distribution of any services and any
property and any other article, commodity or thing of value,
including any trade or commerce directly or indirectly
affecting the people of this state;

D. "unfair or deceptive trade practice" means an
act specifically declared unlawful pursuant to the Unfair
Practices Act, a false or misleading oral or written statement,
visual description or other representation of any kind
knowingly made in connection with the sale, lease, rental or
loan of goods or services or in the extension of credit or in
the collection of debts by a person in the regular course of
the person's trade or commerce, that may, tends to or does
deceive or mislead any person and includes:

(1) representing goods or services as those of
another when the goods or services are not the goods or
services of another;

(2) causing confusion or misunderstanding as
to the source, sponsorship, approval or certification of goods
or services;

(3) causing confusion or misunderstanding as
to affiliation, connection or association with or certification
by another;

(4) using deceptive representations or
designations of geographic origin in connection with goods or
services;

(5) representing that goods or services have
sponsorship, approval, characteristics, ingredients, uses,
benefits or quantities that they do not have or that a person
has a sponsorship, approval, status, affiliation or connection
that the person does not have;

(6) representing that goods are original or
new if they are deteriorated, altered, reconditioned,
reclaimed, used or secondhand;

(7) representing that goods or services are of
a particular standard, quality or grade or that goods are of a
particular style or model if they are of another;

(8) disparaging the goods, services or
business of another by false or misleading representations;

(9) offering goods or services with intent not
to supply them in the quantity requested by the prospective
buyer to the extent of the stock available, unless the
purchaser is purchasing for resale;

(10) offering goods or services with intent
not to supply reasonable expectable public demand;

(11) making false or misleading statements of
fact concerning the price of goods or services, the prices of
competitors or one's own price at a past or future time or the
reasons for, existence of or amounts of price reduction;

(12) making false or misleading statements of
fact for the purpose of obtaining appointments for the
demonstration, exhibition or other sales presentation of goods
or services;

(13) packaging goods for sale in a container
that bears a trademark or trade name identified with goods
formerly packaged in the container, without authorization,
unless the container is labeled or marked to disclaim a
connection between the contents and the trademark or trade
name;

(14) using exaggeration, innuendo or ambiguity
as to a material fact or failing to state a material fact if
doing so deceives or tends to deceive;

(15) stating that a transaction involves
rights, remedies or obligations that it does not involve;

(16) stating that services, replacements or
repairs are needed if they are not needed;

(17) failing to deliver the quality or
quantity of goods or services contracted for;

(18) violating the Tobacco Escrow Fund Act;

(19) offering or providing unposted or
unadvertised pricing or service based on the buyer's gender or
perceived gender identity; provided, however, that this
provision does not apply to persons regulated by the office of
superintendent of insurance pursuant to the New Mexico
Insurance Code; [
or
]

(20) charging an applicant a fee in violation
of the Uniform Owner-Resident Relations Act;
or

(21) violating the Hospital Price Transparency
Act;
and

E. "unconscionable trade practice" means an act or
practice in connection with the sale, lease, rental or loan, or
in connection with the offering for sale, lease, rental or
loan, of any goods or services, including services provided by
licensed professionals, or in the extension of credit or in the
collection of debts that to a person's detriment:

(1) takes advantage of the lack of knowledge,
ability, experience or capacity of a person to a grossly unfair
degree; or

(2) results in a gross disparity between the

value received by a person and the price paid."

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