In Phoenixville, Pa., Phoenixville Hospital charged an average of $211,534 in 2011 to implant a pacemaker. On the other side of the Keystone State, the Uniontown Hospital charged an average of $19,747 for the identical procedure, according to newly released data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The data, culled in 2011 from some 3,000 U.S. hospitals by the government health insurance program, cast light on the vast disparities between what hospitals charge Medicare for the very same treatments.
For example, in California, Seton Medical Center in Daly City charged Medicare an average of $331,809 to implant more than 4 drug-eluting stents in 34 patients. But Baltimore’s St. Agnes Hospital rang up an average bill of just $21,136 for the 12 complicated stenting cases it saw in 2011.
The data represent the 100 most frequently billed discharges covered under the Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System, about 60% of the total IPPS discharges, according to CMS. It’s being released as part of the Obama administration’s push for transparency in healthcare.
The most expensive place for spinal fusion surgery is in Willingboro, N.J., where according to the CMS data the Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County charged an average of $471,121 for the 21 non-cervical spinal fusion cases it saw that year. The cheapest? Inland Hospital, in Waterville, Maine, where the same procedure cost $19,186 for 13 patients in 2011.
The data also show the difference between what the hospitals bill and what Medicare winds up paying. For example, Phoenixville Hospital’s average $211,534 charge for pacemaker implantation got just an average of $17,835 from Medicare 2 years ago.
