1. Quality.__At a minimum, the organization, in conjunction with the Maine Quality Forum, established in Title 24-A, section 6951, shall develop and produce annual quality reports.

2. Price.__At a minimum, the organization, with advice from the Maine Health Data Processing Center as authorized in Title 10, section 681, shall develop and produce annual reports on prices charged for the 15 most common services provided by health care facilities and health care practitioners, excluding emergency services. For health care facilities, the reports must include, but are not limited to, the average price charged per service per facility and total number of services per facility.

3.__Comparison report. At a minimum, the organization shall develop and produce an annual report that compares the 15 most common diagnosis-related groups and the 15 most common outpatient procedures for all hospitals in the State and the 15 most common procedures for nonhospital health care facilities in the State to similar data for medical care rendered in other states, when such data are available.

4.__Physician services. The organization shall provide an annual report of the 10 services and procedures most often provided by osteopathic and allopathic physicians in the private office setting in this State.__The organization shall distribute this report to all physician practices in the State.__The first report must be produced by July 1, 2004.

Sec. C-30. 24 MRSA §2987 is enacted to read:

§2987.__Consumer information

A health care practitioner shall notify patients in writing of the health care practitioner's charges for health care services commonly offered by the practitioner.__Upon request of a patient, a health care practitioner shall assist the patient in determining the actual payment from a 3rd-party payor for a health care service commonly offered by the practitioner.__A patient may file a complaint with the appropriate licensing board regarding a health care practitioner who fails to provide the consumer information required by this section.

PART D

Sec. D-1. 24 MRSA §2332-E, as amended by PL 2003, c. 218, §1, is further amended to read: