About • Advocacy

Medical Costs

The high cost of medical care is one of the biggest challenges facing American society – a challenge made more difficult by a complex and shifting financing system. Journalists have a key role in informing the public about where and how money flows in health care, who benefits, and what practices yield the highest value.

Jump to: Key Resources | Additional Resources

Key Resources

Medicare provider charge data

(updated June 2015) Hospital-specific charges for the top 100 most frequently billed discharges at the 3,000 hospitals across the U.S. that receive Medicare payments.

Tracking doctors’ fees: An important angle to pursue when hospitals acquire physician groups

(May 2015) When a hospital or health system buys a physician’s group, doctors’ fees usually rise sharply.

Debunking myths designed to hinder price, quality transparency efforts

(May 2015) An expert shared the misinformation that health care providers use to block efforts to release pricing information.

Finding the story behind hospital mergers, consolidations

(March 2015) Dan Goldberg looks at five large health systems and the strategies they employ to diversify their revenue base while preparing to play in a post-ACA, value-based world.

How a secretive committee recommends how much physicians should be paid

(December 2014) Understand how the Relative Value Update Committee works.

Miami journalist reports on the challenges in getting price transparency data in South Florida, undated

(October 2014) Difficulties in getting data on price transparency.

Six things to remember in reporting on health care costs

(August 2014) Three reporters offer guidance for reporting on health care costs.

Additional Resources

Building transparency in health care costs

(August 2014) Journalists and developers build a public, nonproprietary database in which users can easily contribute and look up costs.

Health care industry reacting to overtesting, overtreatment

(May 2014) Four panelists discussed the waste of unnecessary tests and procedures at a Chicago AHCJ chapter event.

Delving into cost reports reveals financial health of hospitals, amount of charity care they provide

(December 2013) Oklahoma Watch published a two-part series on hospital financial data, and reporter Clifton Adcock explains how they obtained the data.