CMS Medicare claims · data year 2024

What hospitals charge — and what Medicare actually pays

A hospital's list price and the amount it is paid are far apart. Across the 2,546 hospitals here, the median hospital charged Medicare 4.15 times what Medicare paid for its inpatient stays. Pick a procedure and a state to compare every hospital's average charge and payment, from CMS's own summaries of 2024 claims.

Compare hospitals Price-transparency enforcement

1Hospitals with a page 2,546
2Median charge ÷ payment 4.15×
3Most common stay DRG 871
4CMS enforcement actions 13,355

Compare hospitals for a stay

Procedure or condition (inpatient DRG) State Sort by

Hospital	Stays	Avg charge	Avg paid	Ratio

Averages per stay for Medicare fee-for-service patients in 2024. "Paid" is the total payment: Medicare's share plus the patient's deductible and coinsurance and any other insurer's share. Hospitals with fewer than 11 stays for a DRG are not reported by CMS.

Medicare inpatient stays in 2024, 12 most common DRGs, bars to scale. Source: CMS Medicare Inpatient Hospitals by Geography and Service, DY2024.

Why charges and payments differ

Every hospital keeps a chargemaster — its list price for every item and service. Almost nobody pays it. Medicare pays a fixed amount per stay, set by the diagnosis-related group (DRG) and adjusted for local wages, teaching and the hospital's share of low-income patients; commercial insurers pay negotiated rates; and uninsured patients are often billed nearer list price unless they ask for a discount or financial assistance. So the charge on this site is the hospital's own price, and the payment is what that stay was actually worth to Medicare.

The gap varies a lot. Maryland, which sets hospital rates for all payers, has the smallest; states such as Nevada and Florida have the largest. Each state page ranks its hospitals by the gap.

Most common inpatient stays

DRG 871Septicemia or Severe Sepsis without MV >96 Hours with MCC · $90,297 avg charge, $18,228 paid DRG 291Heart Failure and Shock with MCC · $56,380 avg charge, $12,053 paid DRG 177Respiratory Infections and Inflammations with MCC · $70,592 avg charge, $14,972 paid DRG 193Simple Pneumonia and Pleurisy with MCC · $59,757 avg charge, $12,050 paid DRG 872Septicemia or Severe Sepsis without MV >96 Hours without MCC · $49,049 avg charge, $10,091 paid DRG 690Kidney and Urinary Tract Infections without MCC · $37,821 avg charge, $7,851 paid

All 347 DRGs

Hospitals by state

Sources: CMS Medicare Inpatient Hospitals — by Provider and Service / by Geography and Service, data year 2024; CMS Medicare Outpatient Hospitals — by Provider and Service / by Geography and Service, data year 2024; CMS Hospital Price Transparency Enforcement Activities and Outcomes, July 2026. Checked 2026-10-24. Methodology.