Every hospital ranked by markup ratio: submitted charge ÷ Medicare allowed amount. A 10× markup means they billed 10 times the Medicare rate for the same service.
Source: CMS Medicare Outpatient & Inpatient Hospitals by Provider and Service, 2022. cms.gov
Hospitals are ranked by their overall markup ratio: total submitted charges ÷ total Medicare allowed amount across all procedures and all CMS-submitted claims. A ratio of 10 means the hospital billed 10 times the Medicare-allowed rate on average. Data is sourced from CMS Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data.
Hospitals with the highest markup ratios tend to be concentrated in Florida, Nevada, and California and are often for-profit systems. Chargemaster markups at some facilities exceed 10–15× the Medicare-allowed rate. Hospital chains including some for-profit health systems have faced investigations and lawsuits over these pricing practices.
High markup ratios are generally not illegal. Hospitals are permitted to set their own chargemaster prices. However, the Hospital Price Transparency Rule requires hospitals to publish these prices. Several state attorneys general have investigated billing practices that allegedly exploited uninsured patients by applying chargemaster rates without disclosing financial assistance options.
Search your hospital's name or CCN (CMS Certification Number) in the AccountableHub Hospital Lookup. You'll see its overall markup ratio, where it ranks among all 3,400+ hospitals in our database, and its Medicare billing data by procedure.