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The federal authorities’s new rule requiring hospitals to put up costs for his or her companies is meant to permit sufferers to buy round and evaluate costs, a step towards value transparency that has generated reward and skepticism.
Kaiser Health News examined the value lists — identified in hospital lingo as “chargemasters” — of the most important acute care hospitals in a number of giant cities.
Prices assorted broadly on some fundamental procedures, even for fundamental prices. For occasion, the record value on a liter of fundamental saline resolution for intravenous use ranged from $56 to $472.50, almost seven instances as a lot. A mind MRI with distinction was priced from $1,7210 to $Eight,800 on the hospitals. And they assorted broadly even when evaluating close by hospitals.
The new rule mandates that the chargemasters be out there on the hospital web site in a machine-readable format, however not all hospitals make them simple to search out, and understanding them is an even bigger impediment.
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KHN senior correspondent Julie Appleby and California Healthline’s Barbara Feder Ostrov lately wrote about this new rule and located tariffs befuddling to most anyone with out a sophisticated medical diploma.
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This KHN story first revealed on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.
Harriet Blair Rowan: hrowan@kff.org”>hrowan@kff.org, @HattieRowan
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