Vital signs: The cost of care at Maine hospitals

This database shows the costs at Maine hospitals for the 100 most common procedures billed to the Medicare system in 2011. For each procedure, the database shows what a hospital billed Medicare and what it actually received as a payment. Insurance companies negotiate with hospitals to set the cost of procedures for consumers with health insurance plans. Those costs may differ significantly from the Medicare billing and payment figures in the database. The database also does not show what hospitals would charge a consumer with no insurance coverage.

To search the database, choose a procedure from the table at the top left. The database will display what each hospital billed and was paid, as well as the number of those procedures it billed for. To see hospitals ranked by the gap between what they billed Medicare and what they were actually paid, click on the "View chart" command at the upper right. The four-color bar chart on the right compares Maine hospital billing and payments to the national averages.

Data source: Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services