Healthcare Price Transparency
Report 2026

1Executive Summary

Five years after the Hospital Price Transparency Rule took effect, we now have unprecedented visibility into what hospitals actually charge — and the picture is striking. Taven Health analyzed 3 million+ quality-verified negotiated rate records across 11,322 U.S. healthcare facilities from all 50 states, representing the most comprehensive independent analysis of hospital pricing data available in 2026.

2The State of Hospital Price Transparency

The Hospital Price Transparency Rule, effective January 1, 2021, requires all U.S. hospitals to publish their standard charges in machine-readable format. Five years later, compliance remains imperfect — but the data that is available tells a powerful story.

Our Coverage

Taven Health has built one of the largest independent databases of hospital pricing data in the country. Our current dataset includes:

We process machine-readable files (MRFs) published by hospitals across the country, standardize procedure codes, validate data quality, and make the results searchable. Our coverage spans every state, from rural critical access hospitals to major academic medical centers.

Data Quality Challenges

Not all published data is created equal. Many hospitals publish files riddled with errors, inconsistent formatting, or implausible values. Our quality assurance system grades every record:

The good news: 90% of records earn Tier A quality ratings, meaning the data is internally consistent, plausible, and usable for comparison. The remaining 10% have issues ranging from missing fields to implausible values (like $0 or million-dollar lab tests). We flag but still include lower-quality data with appropriate warnings.

3Price Variation Analysis

The most striking finding in our data: the same procedure at different hospitals can cost anywhere from a few dollars to over a million. While some of this reflects data quality issues at the extremes, the variation between reasonable prices is still staggering.

We analyzed the 10 most commonly priced procedures across our database — each available at more than 4,000 hospitals. The results reveal how broken healthcare pricing really is.

Top 10 Procedures by Hospital Coverage

Average Price Spread

Across all procedures and hospitals in our database, the average spread between the lowest and highest negotiated rate is $4,541. This means that for any given procedure, the most expensive negotiated rate is typically thousands of dollars more than the cheapest — at different hospitals in the same market.

4Geographic Price Disparities

Where you live — or where you happen to need care — has an enormous impact on what you'll pay. Our analysis reveals dramatic state-by-state differences in average negotiated rates.

10 Most Expensive States

10 Least Expensive States

The 9× Gap

The most expensive state (Florida, $3,405 average) charges 9 times more than the least expensive (Maryland, $377). This isn't driven by cost-of-living alone — hospital market concentration, negotiating leverage, and regulatory frameworks all play major roles.

Notably, some expensive states defy expectations: Oklahoma, Alabama, and Wisconsin outpace New York and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, states with aggressive rate regulation (Maryland) or strong public hospital systems (D.C.) consistently deliver lower prices.

5Hospital Markup Analysis (HCRIS)

Using data from CMS Hospital Cost Report Information System (HCRIS), we analyzed cost-to-charge ratios — the relationship between what it actually costs a hospital to provide care and what they charge for it. A ratio of 1.0 means charges equal costs; lower ratios mean higher markups.

Markup by Ownership Type

Highest Markup Hospitals

The hospitals with the lowest cost-to-charge ratios — meaning the highest markups — are overwhelmingly for-profit facilities:

Best Value Hospitals

On the other end, several small government-run and rural hospitals charge close to — or even below — their actual costs:

A cost-to-charge ratio above 1.0 means these hospitals charge less than their reported costs — typically small rural facilities that rely on government subsidies, grants, and community funding to stay open. They're serving communities where profit isn't the goal; survival is.

Non-Profit vs. For-Profit: The Markup Gap

The data makes the case clearly: hospital ownership type is one of the strongest predictors of how much you'll be charged. For-profit hospitals charge 4× the markup of government facilities and over 2× the markup of non-profits.

6Payer Variation

One of the most opaque aspects of healthcare pricing is the variation between what different insurance companies pay the same hospital for the same procedure. Our data brings this into sharp focus.

How Payer Negotiations Create Disparities

Every insurance company negotiates rates independently with every hospital. Large national insurers often secure lower rates due to their bargaining power, while smaller regional plans may pay significantly more. The result: your out-of-pocket costs for the same procedure at the same hospital can vary dramatically based solely on which insurance card you carry.

This creates perverse incentives. Hospitals may steer patients toward higher-paying insurers. Employers choosing health plans for their workers rarely have visibility into how their plan's negotiated rates compare. And patients — who bear the consequences through copays, coinsurance, and deductibles — are left completely in the dark.

The Employer Blind Spot

Self-insured employers — who directly pay their employees' healthcare claims — have the most to gain from price transparency data. If their plan is paying $5,000 for an MRI that another hospital performs for $800, that's money coming directly from the company's bottom line. Tools like Taven's Partner Portal help employers and benefits consultants identify these savings opportunities.

7Consumer Impact

What do these numbers mean for real people? The data points to a clear conclusion: healthcare price shopping can save patients hundreds to thousands of dollars per procedure — but only if they have the tools and information to do it.

Potential Savings from Price Shopping

Consider the 10 most common procedures in our database. The difference between the average price and the 25th percentile price represents what a typical patient could save by simply choosing a more affordable hospital:

Financial Assistance Is Underutilized

Even when patients can't shop around — in emergencies or when only one hospital is nearby — financial assistance programs can dramatically reduce bills. Most non-profit hospitals are required to offer charity care, and many for-profit hospitals have voluntary programs.

Our data shows that 1,464 non-profit private hospitals, 205 church-affiliated hospitals, and hundreds of government facilities have formal financial assistance policies. Yet studies consistently show that fewer than half of eligible patients ever apply.

What Patients Should Do

1. Compare prices before scheduled procedures. Use Taven or your insurer's cost estimator to compare hospitals.
2. Ask for the cash price. Many hospitals offer discounted cash rates that are lower than insured rates — especially for imaging and lab work.
3. Know your rights. The Price Transparency Rule and the No Surprises Act give you legal protections.
4. Appeal and negotiate. If you receive a bill you can't afford, negotiate it. Hospitals would rather get 50% than send you to collections.
5. Apply for financial assistance. If your income is below 400% of the federal poverty level, you may qualify for significant discounts or free care.

8Methodology

This report analyzes hospital pricing data collected and processed by Taven Health's data pipeline as of March 2026.

Data Sources

• Hospital price transparency files: Machine-readable files (MRFs) published by hospitals under the CMS Hospital Price Transparency Rule (45 CFR 180). We process files from 11,322 sites of care (hospitals & surgery centers).
• HCRIS data: Hospital Cost Report Information System data from CMS, providing cost-to-charge ratios and financial metrics for Medicare-participating hospitals.
• Hospital metadata: CMS Provider of Services files, American Hospital Association data, and state health department registries.

Quality Assurance

Every negotiated rate record passes through our multi-stage quality assurance process:

• Tier A (90.0%): Internally consistent, plausible values, complete fields
• Tier B (8.8%): Minor issues (e.g., missing median, slight inconsistencies)
• Tier C/D/F (1.2%): Significant issues flagged but included with warnings

All analyses in this report use quality-passed records (Tiers A and B) unless otherwise noted. Records with implausible values (e.g., $0 negotiated rates) are excluded from averages but noted in variation ranges.

Limitations

• Not all hospitals have published compliant transparency files. Our 11,322 facilities represent the majority of U.S. acute care facilities but not the complete universe.
• Published rates may not reflect actual paid amounts after adjustments, bundled payments, or capitation arrangements.
• Extreme values (very high or very low) may reflect data entry errors in hospital-published files.
• Cost-to-charge ratios from HCRIS are facility-wide averages and may not apply to individual service lines.

For detailed methodology, data dictionaries, and API access, visit the Taven Partner Portal.

9Data Tables

Table 1: Price Variation by Procedure

Table 2: Average Prices by State (All States)

Table 3: Cost-to-Charge Ratio by Ownership Type