In a dispute involving only $11,000, a recent Texas Supreme Court decision that forces a Houston hospital to disclose reimbursement rates charged to insured patients versus uninsured patients has put Texas civil litigators on high alert—it gives their clients a powerful way to confront out-of-control medical bills, they say.

But while the evidentiary ruling will certainly be felt in so-called hospital lien cases, in which medical providers recover their costs won by plaintiffs in civil litigation, some Texas attorneys believe the decision could be applied to a range of other civil cases in which the reasonableness of a party’s charges is at issue.