What hospitals and insurers agreed to charge.
Every US hospital has to publish the rates it negotiated with each insurer. Rate Diff reads those files every week: which rates changed, which hospitals comply, and how far apart the prices sit for the same service in one metro.
What every issue holds
Negotiated, not paid
Every rate is one a hospital published as negotiated with a payer. Nothing here is an amount anyone paid, and every table says which number it is.
Against Medicare
Each dollar rate is set beside Medicare's national rate for the same service, so two hospitals in one metro can be compared on one scale.
What changed this week
When a hospital republishes its file, the issue lists the rates that moved, by service, payer, and plan, with the old and the new figure.
Who complies
A missing file, a file that fails the federal validator, and a site that refuses to serve its file are findings, named with the hospital.
Who reads it
Benefits advisors and brokers, self-insured employers and the people who answer for their health plans, third-party administrators, and direct-contracting shops: anyone who has to know what a plan pays and show that they looked.
Rate Diff is published by Upstream Logic. Write to hello@ratediff.com.