Hospitals’ online, over-the-phone cash prices rarely align

Across 60 U.S. hospitals, researchers found “wide variation” between the vaginal childbirth and brain MRI prices hospitals listed online—a requirement of price transparency regulations implemented in 2021—and the prices given to secret shoppers who called for an estimate.

The prices “often differed by 50% or more” and sometimes more than 100% for both services and regardless of whether the hospital was highly ranked or a safety-net provider, researchers found.

“These results demonstrate hospitals’ continued problems in knowing and communicating their prices for specific services,” researchers wrote...