Health Care

Oklahoma hailed as health-care transparency leader

October 28, 2025

Ray Carter

Starting Nov. 1, Oklahomans will be able to learn the cost of hundreds of medical procedures before surgery, allowing for cost comparison and consumer shopping on a level never before available, thanks to a new state law.

Gov. Kevin Stitt and health-care experts hailed the law at a press conference this week, saying it makes Oklahoma a national leader because the law not only allows price comparisons, but also includes consumer protections that prevent patients from having to pay bills that are not posted in advance of treatment.

“We want to know, and we should be able to know, how much things cost and not be surprised by humongous medical bills,” Stitt said. “So now, as a patient, you can see the cost of services up front before you actually go into the hospital. You have the opportunity to shop around to find the best service, the best price possible, and we think that’s really, really good. It happens in every other industry, but somehow the health care industry has done a really good job of hiding the prices and not letting them be transparent with the consumers.”

“November 1, you change history, really being the leading state in the country to protect patients and to help lower the cost of health care by pulling back the curtain, making hospitals show all actual prices in health care,” said Cynthia Fisher, founder and chairman of PatientRightsAdvocate.org.

Senate Bill 889, by state Sen. Casey Murdock and state Rep. Mark Lepak, requires Oklahoma hospitals to make public a digital file in a machine-readable format “that contains a list of all standard charges” for hundreds of hospital items or services.

The bill incorporates the Trump administration’s price-transparency executive order into state law.

If a hospital does not comply with the price transparency law, SB 889 makes it illegal for that hospital to “initiate or pursue collection action” against a patient for a debt owed for services. Patients would also be allowed to sue hospitals for failure to comply with the price-transparency law. Hospitals that lose those cases would be required to refund any payment for services and also pay a penalty equal to the amount of patient debt, and the hospital could be required to pay the patient’s attorney fees.

Hospitals lobbied against the bill’s passage, and the measure initially failed on the floor of the Oklahoma House of Representatives on May 5.

However, the bill fared better on a subsequent vote on May 7, passing on a 51-38 vote. It then passed the Oklahoma Senate on a 35-8 vote on May 20.

“This was one of those makes-sense bills to me,” said Lepak, R-Claremore. “I don’t know anybody who’s ever complained about transparency if you’re a consumer or a taxpayer. Only those who kind of hide behind a lack of transparency are against something like this.”

Free-Market Pioneers ‘Vindicated’

Dr. Keith Smith, a founder of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and the Free Market Medical Association, said the new law leaves proponents of health-care price transparency feeling “very vindicated.”

“Not that long ago, what you’re seeing here was said to be ‘impossible,’” Smith said.

Since 2009, the Surgery Center of Oklahoma has posted all-inclusive prices online for numerous procedures. Those prices are often far less than what other hospitals charge and have drawn patients from across the nation and even internationally.

Smith predicted that greater transparency will force other providers to lower their prices to levels comparable to the Surgery Center’s rates.

“This idea of free-market discipline that every other industry must endure I think is raining down on the industry, and it will do exactly what Governor Stitt said,” Smith said. “I think we’ll see prices fall and quality soar.”

Currently, Fisher said that “wide price variation” is routine at hospitals, with some facilities charging rates up to 10 times higher for some patients than other patients receiving the same procedure in the same facility from the same medical team.

Fisher said there have been cases where one patient will be charged $1,200 for a procedure while another patient is charged $12,000 for the same procedure.

She noted the cash price for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is around $300, but insured rates average $3,000 and go as high as $7,500.

“As long as hospitals and insurance companies have kept their prices hidden, they can charge whatever they want,” Fisher said. “And this is exactly what has happened.”

She praised the bill’s consumer-protection provisions, saying they give the transparency requirement real teeth to ensure greater compliance.

“Oklahoma will be the very first state to make it happen that the consumers are also protected, that if they didn’t get the price that no one can come after them for medical debt—that’s the hospital or any collection agencies—if the prices weren’t transparent and fair up front,” Fisher said.

Starting Nov. 1, Fisher said Oklahomans can compare prices at all state hospitals at OklahomaHospitalPrices.org. 

The law also requires each hospital to post its prices on the hospital website.

Stitt called the new law a “pretty common sense” measure and predicted it would reduce the likelihood of individuals being stuck with unexpected $50,000 bills for a few days in the hospital.

“Now that we know the pricing, you can’t just all of a sudden throw a $50,000 bill out,” Stitt said. “It’s got to be posted. That is a great protection for people.”

As the benefits of Oklahoma’s law become apparent, officials predict other states will quickly adopt similar measures.

“The nation is really watching what’s happening here,” Smith said.

Photo credit: Office of the governor. Pictured from left to right: Jay Kempton, Rep. Mark Lepak, Gov. Kevin Stitt, Cynthia Fisher, Dr. Keith Smith