Suggested Medicare price posting language for your hospital

Below is an example of Baker Tilly recommended language for use on a hospital website. The language discusses charges and patient financial liability with respect to the Medicare price posting requirement. Please contact our healthcare team with any questions.  

Example language

Hospital X is committed to assisting you in understanding your financial responsibilities related to medical services that you might receive at our hospital. The amount you are charged is determined in large part by length of stay (for inpatient care), required testing (i.e., radiology, lab) and any special equipment that may be needed.

Please understand that specific charges provided here are our base/undiscounted prices and do not necessarily reflect a patient’s financial responsibility. Charges are set based on the intensity of service (i.e., personnel, supplies, fixed hospital costs) as well as prices charged by similar hospitals. We review our charges annually to ensure that they are appropriate to the services/procedures being provided.

The most important thing for you to understand is that your payment liability is dependent on several factors including insurance coverage type, deductible amount, co-pays or self-pay status. These displayed charges provide some general guidance as to how many and how intense the services were that you received; however, your insurance carrier has likely agreed to pay a lesser amount based on the number and type of services involved.  Therefore, your ultimate financial liability is more closely tied to your insurance coverage and benefits than these charges.

We recommend that you speak with your health insurer to assist you in determining your financial responsibility for any service you are considering or any service that may be provided to you at our hospital.

Hospital X also provides resources to assist you in better understanding your healthcare benefits related to services and care provided. Please contact us at (XXX) XXX-XXXX to discuss if you would like to discuss further.

Note:  If your hospital opts to provide two levels of charge/pricing disclosure (e.g., at the DRG level and then at the line item level), these different views should be referenced above.

For more information on this topic, or to learn how Baker Tilly healthcare specialists can help, contact our team.