Several top academic medical centers across the U.S. have started charging patients for certain MyChart messages.
Patients at these institutions typically get billed for the patient portal interactions if they take at least five minutes of a provider's time and require medical expertise. The charges, which can range from $7 to $98 and are often covered by insurance, are intended to get a handle on the explosion in MyChart messages physicians have been receiving.
Still, health systems remain divided on the policy. Here are the decisions from U.S. News & World Report's top 22 hospitals for 2023-24 on whether to bill for the messages, according to previous Becker's reporting, their websites, and spokespeople from the organizations:
Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis): Yes
Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston): No
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles): No
Cleveland Clinic: Yes
Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian (Philadelphia): No
Houston Methodist Hospital: Yes
Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore): Yes
Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston): No
Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.): Yes
Mount Sinai Hospital (New York City): No
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell (New York City): No
North Shore University Hospital at Northwell Health (Manhasset, N.Y.): No
Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago): Yes
NYU Langone Hospitals (New York City): No
Rush University Medical Center (Chicago): No
Stanford Health Care-Stanford (Calif.) Hospital: No
UC San Diego Health-LaJolla and Hillcrest Hospitals: Yes
UCLA Medical Center (Los Angeles): No
UCSF Health-UCSF Medical Center (San Francisco): Yes
University of Michigan Health-Ann Arbor: Yes
UT Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas): Unknown (did not respond to Becker's)
Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, Tenn.): Yes