The New York State Health Department has posted hospital chargemaster and cost data from the past few years on its website, according to a New York Times report.
According to the department's health data website, more than 380,000 data points for 1,400 conditions and procedures are now available to view. The dataset includes average and median charges as well as average and median costs.
Charges and costs varied greatly, similar to what CMS showed earlier this year when it released a trove of hospital inpatient and outpatient charge data. Some of the extremes included a $2.84 million charge at the University Hospital of Brooklyn for a "coagulation and platelet disorder" (it cost $918,462 to treat). At Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, there was an $8 charge for a $2 treatment of peptic ulcer and gastritis. Births with problems were the most common discharge, and their median costs ranged from $633 to more than $2,100. Median charges, meanwhile, ranged from $2,000 to more than $8,300.
Hospital groups have criticized the state's data dump, saying the charges are misleading and don't reflect what they are actually paid. A spokeswoman for the Healthcare Association of New York State told the Times that "the information that was released causes confusion. Developing useful information will require a cooperative effort by all stakeholders."
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