Frequently Asked Questions

All pricing data on careprices.ai comes directly from CMS hospital price transparency files — machine-readable files that every U.S. hospital is federally required to publish under the Hospital Price Transparency Rule (45 CFR § 180). These aren't estimates or modeled numbers. If it's on careprices.ai, a hospital put it there.

We ingest, standardize, and index thousands of these files so you can search them by procedure name, CPT code, or facility — without needing to download a 300 MB spreadsheet and run pivot tables.

Hospitals are legally required to publish accurate, machine-readable pricing under federal law — and face CMS enforcement and civil monetary penalties for non-compliance. The prices reflect what hospitals have officially disclosed as their standard charges, cash prices, and payer-specific negotiated rates.

That said, your actual bill depends on your specific insurance plan, the diagnosis code used, whether additional services are bundled in, and whether the provider is in-network. We always recommend confirming with the facility before scheduling — the prices you find here are the right starting point for that conversation.

We update our dataset regularly as hospitals publish new price transparency files. CMS requires hospitals to update their filings at least annually, but many update more frequently. Our pipeline monitors for new filings and ingests them on a rolling basis to keep prices as current as what hospitals have officially disclosed.

Stale pricing data costs patients real money — so freshness is a priority, not a footnote.

Yes — for any significant procedure, we recommend confirming the estimate with the facility directly before scheduling. Here's why: prices in transparency files represent standard or gross charges. What you actually pay depends on:

• Your specific insurance plan and whether the facility is in-network
• The exact diagnosis and procedure codes used during your visit
• Whether imaging, lab work, anesthesia, or facility fees are bundled or billed separately
• Whether you qualify for a financial assistance program

careprices.ai gives you the right numbers to ask about — not the final bill. Use it to compare hospitals, spot outliers, and go into the conversation informed.

Yes — completely free, no login required. The pricing data hospitals publish is public by law, and we believe access to it should be too. You don't need to create an account, enter your insurance information, or provide any personal details.

careprices.ai is supported by advertising, not by charging patients for information that legally belongs to them.

No. We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties for marketing purposes. Since no login is required, we collect very little personal data to begin with.

See our Privacy Policy for full details on what we collect and how it's used.

A CPT code (Current Procedural Terminology) is a standardized five-digit numeric code that identifies a specific medical procedure or service. CPT codes are maintained by the American Medical Association and are used universally by U.S. providers and insurers for billing.

For example, CPT code 70553 = MRI Brain with and without contrast. When hospitals publish their transparency files, they organize prices by CPT code, which is how we can accurately match a search for "brain MRI" to the right prices across thousands of facilities.

You can search careprices.ai by procedure name or by CPT code — either works. If you're preparing for a specific procedure, ask your doctor for the CPT code before searching. It's the most precise way to find what you'll actually be billed for.

U.S. hospital pricing is driven by a mix of factors that have nothing to do with quality of care:

Market power — Large health systems in concentrated markets can negotiate higher rates with insurers because patients have fewer alternatives.
Facility overhead — Academic medical centers have higher operating costs than outpatient surgery centers or community hospitals.
Geographic cost-of-living — Labor, real estate, and supply costs vary dramatically by region.
Negotiated contracts — Payer-specific rates are the result of private negotiations, not transparent pricing.
Charge master strategy — Gross charges are often set as a multiple of Medicare rates, and the multiple varies widely.

The result: two hospitals across the street from each other can charge $800 and $8,000 for the same MRI — and most patients have no way to know. Price transparency data makes this visible for the first time. Use it to your advantage by comparing facilities near you.

Yes, when hospitals include them. The federal price transparency rule requires hospitals to publish:

• Gross charges — the full list price before any discounts
• Discounted cash / self-pay prices — what you pay without insurance (often the lowest price available)
• Payer-specific negotiated rates — the contracted rate for each major insurer, per procedure

We surface cash/self-pay prices prominently because they're the most universally applicable — they don't depend on which plan you have or whether you're in-network. If you're uninsured, on a high-deductible plan, or shopping out-of-network, the cash price is what matters most.

Negotiated rates by insurer are shown when available in the hospital's published data. To see what your specific plan would pay, you'll need to check your insurer's transparency tool or call your provider.

careprices.ai covers 6,500+ healthcare facilities across all 50 states, including hospitals, outpatient surgery centers, and specialty facilities. Our database contains over 5 billion individual pricing data points — making it one of the largest publicly available repositories of U.S. healthcare pricing data.

Coverage includes the full spectrum of care: imaging, surgical procedures, cardiac care, lab work, maternity care, ER visits, and hundreds more. Use the compare tool to find and filter facilities near you.