Guides

Short, sourced answers to the questions behind the numbers.

How to Get a Price Estimate From a HospitalYour rights to a price before a planned procedure: posted hospital charges, the good-faith estimate if uninsured, and your insurer's cost tool. What Is a DRG? How Medicare Pays for a Hospital StayDiagnosis-related groups set what Medicare pays per stay, whatever the hospital charges. How DRGs work, what MCC and CC mean, and how to read a DRG code. Why Hospital Charges Are So Much Higher Than PaymentsThe median hospital charged Medicare 4.15 times what it was paid in 2024. What the chargemaster is, who pays list price, and why Maryland's gap is near 1.