--- title: Health Care Costs: Hospital Operations Cost Vary Wildly description: The cost insurance companies pay for a medical operation in a hospital varies dramatically from city to city within in the United States canonical: https://time.com/4149077/hospital-operations-costs/ author: Justin Worland article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-15T15:06:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:22:31.240Z article:section: Health og:title: Costs of Hospital Operations Can Vary Wildly by Location og:description: The price difference between hospitals can be in the thousands of dollars og:url: https://time.com/4149077/hospital-operations-costs/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Costs of Hospital Operations Can Vary Wildly by Location twitter:description: The price difference between hospitals can be in the thousands of dollars twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Costs of Hospital Operations Can Vary Wildly by Location  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Dec 15, 2015 3:06 PM UTC  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Dec 15, 2015 3:06 PM UTC The cost insurance companies pay for a medical operation in a hospital varies dramatically from city to city within the U.S. and can even vary by a factor of nine within an individual city, according to new research. The [study](http://www.healthcarepricingproject.org/sites/default/files/pricing%5Fvariation%5Fmanuscript%5F0.pdf) from researchers at Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania and other schools relies on data from private insurers to provide a lens into health care costs. Researchers found that the cost of hospital visits is the primary driver of differences in health care cost between regions. “These price differences between hospitals can be thousands of dollars,” said study author Martin Gaynor, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. The concrete examples of cost differences are startling. An insurer would pay 12 times less for an lower-limb MRI in Baltimore than it would in the Bronx, N.Y. The cost of that same operation could vary by a factor of nine in Miami, according to the research. Researchers also found that locations with a single hospital tended to have prices that were 15% higher than in markets with four or more options. The study warns that mergers between hospitals may lead to an increase in health care costs. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4149077/hospital-operations-costs/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4149077/hospital-operations-costs/"},"headline":"Costs of Hospital Operations Can Vary Wildly by Location","datePublished":"2015-12-15T15:06:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:22:31.240Z","description":"The price difference between hospitals can be in the thousands of dollars","url":"https://time.com/4149077/hospital-operations-costs/","keywords":["Healthcare"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Justin Worland","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/justin-worland/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/healthcare/","name":"Healthcare"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4149077/hospital-operations-costs/","name":"Costs of Hospital Operations Can Vary Wildly by Location"}}]}] ```