All eight hospitals owned and operated by Boston-based Partners HealthCare are more expensive than the average care provider in Massachusetts, reports Boston Business Journal.
That finding is from a study conducted by the Center for Health Information and Analysis, which compiled commercial insurance data to rank providers in Massachusetts according to the price of their medical services.
When asked about the cost disparities, Partner's defended its high prices by pointing to the quality and scope of its services, according to Boston Business Journal.
Comparatively, two of Boston-based CareGroup's five hospitals are higher than the state average, as are two of Burlington, Mass.-based Lahey Health's three hospitals and one of Worcester-based UMass Memorial's four hospitals.
For payment reform advocates the report confirms the need for legislative action to limit price variation among hospitals.
"Today's report reinforces what we have known for a long time about our unfair hospital payment system," Tyrék Lee, executive vice president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, told Boston Business Journal. "Our community hospitals will continue to struggle to compete against wealthy academic medical centers unless we take action."