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Welcome to the Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA)
Hospital Pricing Website
The hospital association and its members believe patients have a right to know
more about the prices hospitals charge for services as well as information
about how well hospitals are reimbursed for the care they deliver and how much
of the care delivered is not reimbursed.
In response, WSHA has produced WSHA Hospital Pricing, a database of hospital
charges, utilization and payer mix. Specifically, using this site, you can
find:
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Hospital charge information for all services at all Washington hospitals. You
also will see a count of the number of patients cared for in each service and
the average number of days patients who received a specific service stayed in
the hospital.
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Information about how much of each hospital’s business comes from each of three
major payment sources: private insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid.
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Aggregate information on the amount of charges paid to each hospital for the
three major kinds of health care coverage – private insurance, Medicare and
Medicaid. This information allows you to see how hospitals’ charges compare to
the amount of revenue they actually collect for services provided to the three
patient categories.
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Information about the amount of charity care and other uncompensated care each
hospital delivers in a given year.
You should know that while this information contains hospital charges, it will
not tell you how much you will owe for a hospital stay to receive a specific
kind of care. That information is best obtained from your own insurance
company. It is the insurance company that negotiates payment arrangements with
the hospital and that knows how much you will have to pay under the plan that
covers you.
So, while publicly reported hospital charge data will not answer every
question, it should, at a minimum, provide a good and factual starting point
for more informed discussion between you, your insurance company, and your
hospital care giver.
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