(Bloomberg) — U.S. hospitals charge prices that, at times, can be thousands of dollars different for the same medical procedures, even within towns or states, according to federal data released today.
In some cases, the data from more than 3,000 hospitals that take Medicare, the health program for the elderly, showed that costs can be drastically different at hospitals just miles apart. For instance, three hospitals located in and around the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, alternately charged $97,214, $46,457 and $28,237 to treat a respiratory infection with complications, according to the report.
