The Hospital Cost Tool Makes It Easier to Understand Health Care Costs and Pricing

Purpose

The National Academy for State Health Policy’s Hospital Cost Tool is a dashboard that offers analytical insights into how much hospitals spend on patient care services, and how such costs relate to the hospital charges (list prices) and actual prices paid by health plans. It reports on a range of measures for hospital revenue, costs, profitability, and break-even points at the hospital, state, and health system levels. The underlying dataset includes approximately 60 variables extracted and calculated using data from the national Healthcare Cost Report Information System as the main data source.

The Hospital Cost Tool was created through a partnership between the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), Rice University’s Baker Institute, and Mathematica.

For more information about the Hospital Cost Tool, please contact: Evelyn Li, Sule Gerovich, or Guru Rasukonda.