News: Average inpatient stay costs more than $22,000, price transparency reveals wild price fluctuations

The average outpatient visit in the U.S. costs nearly $500 and the average inpatient stay costs more than $22,000, according to a global study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. This puts the U.S. far above every other nation when it comes to total healthcare costs, HealthLeaders Media reported.

Though the study revealed the average healthcare cost, that doesn’t mean consumers have a better chance of anticipating their healthcare costs. The new price transparency regulations introduced as part of the fiscal year 2019 inpatient prospective payment system final rule has revealed wild price fluctuations between hospitals even within the same city.

California Healthline recently examined the newly public chargemasters of four hospitals in Oakland, California, and another four in Los Angeles. The comparison revealed that the prices between the hospitals sometimes varied by thousands of dollars. For example, a brain MRI with contrast was priced from $3,200 to $8,800 depending on the hospitals.

On top of those differences in listed prices, there’s also the question of payer coverage and the patient’s comorbid conditions, both of which can heavily effect the reimbursement the hospital receives and the amount a patient pays out of pocket.

Editor’s note: To read HealthLeaders Media’s coverage of the average healthcare costs study, click here. To read about the California Healthline study, click here. To read more about the price transparency rules and implementation hiccups, click here.