November 30, 2021 – Some hospitals charge up to 10 times as much as others for standard medical scans, according to the latest analysis of previously secret market rates.
Median prices for taking images of the brain, legs, abdomen and chest differed across hospitals by thousands of dollars in some cases, a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins and Michigan State universities reported Tuesday in the journal Radiology.
Their analysis compared median commercial prices among hospitals that complied with new federal rules this year to make rates public.
The findings confirm the wide pricing gaps across hospitals and large markups by some of them reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. Health economists say the disparities reveal how little influence consumers have over pricing, unlike markets for groceries or airlines, where companies vie for business by offering good deals…