Hospitals that frequently perform a procedure usually charge less for it, rural and urban hospitals have different cost structures, and federal adjustments may affect the actual amounts paid.
[ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH]
The average sticker price to get a pacemaker at Des Peres Hospital is $74,953. About eight miles away, at St. Luke’s Hospital, it’s only $31,530.
That discrepancy between how two St. Louis-area hospitals price their services is echoed across Missouri and the United States in new data released Wednesday by the federal government.
The information, posted online by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, focused on “average covered charges” for 100 of the mostly commonly billed medical conditions and procedures among the elderly and disabled, including the implantation of a pacemaker for a weak heart.
Read more about the discrepancies in health care cost nationwide at the St. Louis Dispatch.