Hospital Charges Bear Little Relationship To The Quality Of The Care, Study Says

It’s well known that the charges hospitals list for surgeries and other procedures bear little resemblance to the actual prices most patients pay. An analysis by Castlight Health, a company that helps employers and workers compare prices, has found that the charges also bear little relationship to the quality of the care.

Castlight focused on hospitals’ charges for a joint replacement that didn’t involve major complications. The company compared hospitals’ average charges to a safety score the company calculated from Medicare data. (Those data include information about patients hospitalized for things other than a joint replacement.) That score combines hospitals’ rates of serious complications, infections and other potentially avoidable health problems.