Was Your Surgery a Rip Off?

Online, August 4, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Spurred by the article Bitter Pill, by Steven Brill, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released data showing hospital costs for common inpatient and outpatient procedures in 2011. The data shows what these hospitals charged for surgeries along with what Medicare and Medicaid actually reimbursed.

The discrepancies are often shocking. For instance, the average cost of a Pacemaker implant procedure in 2011 was $53,690.44, and the average Medicare reimbursement was $13,899.73. Across 26 discharges though, Vista Medical Center East in Waukegan, IL charged the most in the U.S. - $167,628.00 on average despite being reimbursed just $14,931 - this is over a 1000% markup! It's a safe assumption that patients that didn't have the benefit of Medicare were charged significantly more.

The website HospitalCostCompare.com allows visitors to easily access the data released by CMS for the 100 leading inpatient Medicare diagnoses and 30 outpatient procedures. Hospitals can be compared by state or region for each surgery, and the site shows how a hospital's costs compare to those of its peers. Other metrics, such as national averages and rankings, have been calculated and can be reviewed. HospitalCostCompare.com has additional information about each hospital, including customer satisfaction surveys.

The cost transparency now available to consumers is a great step towards reducing rampant exploitative pricing practices in the healthcare system. This data gives patients and billing advocates more bargaining power and will lead to a future in which healthcare follows a free market structure. As CMS continues to release additional pricing data, the site will be updated to reflect these values as well.