Hospital Charges Increased Over 10% between 2011 and 2013

Charges that hospitals ask patients to pay for a series of common procedures have increased by more than 10% between 2011 and 2013, which is more than double the rate of inflation.

According to the data released by the federal government, the amount paid by Medicare remained flat. It also showed that the rising list prices of hospitals can affect the uninsured and people who use hospitals outside their insurance network.

As per the report the hospital charges have increased from $50,116 in 2011 to $54,239 in 2013. The data from 2013 showed that charges on some of the most common procedures still vary widely from hospital to hospital, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The information about charges and payments was part of a large release of data, representing about $62 billion in Medicare payments and more than seven million hospital discharges.

The data released also included information about roughly 950,000 doctors and health care practitioners who received $90 billion in Medicare payments.

The list of doctors receiving the highest reimbursements in 2013 included two familiar names from a year earlier, both of whom are facing legal action for their billing practices.

Medicare’s now-annual release of the data has been helpful for academics, journalists and private companies trying to understand how the health care system works.

This is the third time when Medicare has released such information about hospitals, and the second time it has done so for physicians.

The overall trends shown in the data released this week did not differ from the data provided in the previous year, but together they provide a useful glance at the health care system through the Medicare program.