Findings
Data-backed notes from hospitals' own published price files. Every number traces to a public source or a named assumption.
The same MRI, one health system, two Wyoming hospitals
Banner Health posts an MRI of the brain (CPT 70553) at $1,934.59 cash in its 25-bed Torrington hospital and $1,200.78 in its Casper flagship — on gross charges within $43 of each other. The rural hospital's costs genuinely run higher, but not enough to explain the charges. What the price files and cost reports show.
Why a Medicare patient can owe more at the small rural hospital
At a Critical Access Hospital, Medicare figures your 20% coinsurance on the hospital's charges — not on what Medicare pays. At Banner's 25-bed Torrington hospital, that turns a $2,816 posted charge for a brain MRI into a $563.20 patient share: more than Medicare's entire payment for the same scan at its Casper flagship. The rule, cited, and the math from the hospital's own price file.
The same CT abdomen-and-pelvis scan, 73 Colorado hospitals, prices 62× apart
One CT code (CPT 74177) carries posted cash prices from $451.57 to $27,983.23 across 73 Colorado hospitals — a 62-fold spread in the hospitals' own price files. What the data shows, and what to do about it.