Extreme Price Spread on Common Procedures
14x echocardiogram spread, 90th vs 10th percentile hospital
A standard echocardiogram (CPT 93306) runs $187 at Noyes Memorial in Dansville, NY and $4,734 at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. The regional median is $649 across 78 hospitals. A routine EKG tracing (CPT 93005) runs $8.35 to $246 across 71 hospitals. Medicare pays about $10 for the same tracing.
Method: Per-hospital price is the median of per-payer medians, 3+ commercial payers, A/B-tier hospitals. Echo n=78, EKG n=71.
Verification: Partially verified by phone — Expensive end verified July 2026: Lenox Hill's estimate line quoted $4,789 billed to Aetna against our $4,734 figure, 1% apart. Source rows archived.
Data: July 2026. Source: each hospital's CMS-mandated machine-readable file (45 CFR 180).