Former Trump officials praise lawsuit against AMA to further healthcare transparency

“By challenging barriers that restrict the public’s ability to freely access and use the billing codes needed to understand healthcare prices, the case seeks to make price information more accessible, comparable, and actionable for patients and employers,” Martin said.

“Removing these barriers will help advance the president’s broader objective of putting patients first, increasing competition, and driving down healthcare costs,” Martin said.

Former Director of the Domestic Policy Council in the first Trump administration Andrew Bremberg exclusively told The Center Square that “patients, physicians and taxpayers deserve transparency into how CPT codes are created, changed and controlled, and commercial interests should never take priority over America's patients.” 

“This critical lawsuit brought by PatientRightsAdvocate.org seeks to hold the AMA accountable and unleash another piece of the president's mission to shift the power back to patients, instead of entrenched interests,” Bremberg said.

“President Trump is the author of healthcare price transparency and has led the fight for accountability for the biggest players in healthcare, who have long operated behind closed doors,” Bremberg said. 

PatientRightsAdvocate.org (PRA) filed its lawsuit against the American Medical Association on Aug. 12 in the effort to accomplish healthcare price transparency.

In its lawsuit, PRA asked the court to rule that the AMA must declare its “asserted copyrights in CPT are invalid” as well as that PRA’s proposed use of CPT is fair use and not copyright infringement.

PRA’s “proposed use” of CPT codes is to make them “freely and openly available to the public,” on its website, according to the lawsuit. 

PRA believes that the AMA has “no right to withhold CPT from the public and charge hefty fees for access,” especially as these codes are required by state and federal law.

An AMA spokesperson told The Center Square: "CPT serves as the uniform language of medicine, updated continuously through an open, transparent process that reflects evolving clinical care. The AMA brings expertise and scale to this work, convening collaboration across medicine, government, and industry. We will vigorously defend the AMA’s intellectual property rights to ensure the continued access physicians and patients rely on."

Founder and chairman of PRA Cynthia Fisher told The Center Square that “the government made CPT codes part of the operating law of our health care system, but the AMA keeps it behind a paywall and charges patients, doctors, hospitals, health plans, employers, and tech firms for the privilege of understanding it.”

“These egregious charges ultimately are increasing the costs of healthcare for American patients and employers, unnecessarily,” Fisher said. 

“Americans should not have to pay a private trade association for permission to see how their medical care is billed and priced,” Fisher said. 

“We are asking the court to affirm a basic principle: No one can charge the public to access standards that are incorporated into state and federal law,” Fisher said.

The AMA has not yet responded to The Center Square’s request for comment.