Crouse Hospital lists prices for ‘most common’ procedures on its website

SYRACUSE — Crouse Hospital has posted prices for its “most common” medical procedures on its website, saying it’s the first Central New York hospital to do so.

Estimated average prices for more than 300 medical services are included on the site, Crouse said in a news release.

It includes inpatient and outpatient procedures, obstetrics procedures, robotic-surgery procedures, and medical and other surgical procedures.

The information is available at www.crouse.org/prices.

For example, the estimated average price of delivering a baby at Crouse is more than $3,800. The average Medicaid payment for that procedure is nearly $1,800, while the average insurance payment is more than $2,100, according to the site.

“Healthcare today can be confusing and complicated,” Kelli Harris, CFO of Crouse Hospital, said in the news release. “At Crouse, we try to make it as easy as possible to navigate the healthcare system, and that includes being transparent and informing our patients and our community about the cost of medical services we provide.”

Prices listed on the website may vary based on pre-existing health conditions, severity of the illness, and the actual procedure performed, Harris noted.

In addition, prices listed do not include physician fees, which individual providers typically bill separately from the hospital’s charges, according to Crouse.

Examples include charges from a surgeon, anesthesiologist or radiologist, said Harris, who encourages patients and consumers to contact their insurance provider to help determine their out-of-pocket costs.

Prices listed on the Crouse website are current as of June 2014, the hospital said. Crouse will update the information annually.

The site may not reflect any recent pricing changes that may occur, Crouse said.  

Patients should also research the quality of care provided at a particular hospital, as that that does not always correlate with pricing, Harris adds.

Harris recommends www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov, the federal-government site for Medicare, but notes “numerous” online sites include information about hospital quality.

In addition to the prices, the Crouse site also contains a list of frequently asked questions, along with the total number of times a particular procedure or test was performed at Crouse in the previous year.

The site also includes other information, such as the average age of patients who have undergone a given medical test or procedure; the average amount that Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance pays; and a link to additional information about that particular medical service, Crouse said.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com