Understanding Differences Between High- and Low-Price Hospitals: Implications for Efforts to Rein in Costs

A study examining the relationship between hospital characteristics and hospital prices can help inform the debate on controlling health care costs. Compared to other hospitals, high-price hospitals tend to be larger, be major teaching hospitals, belong to systems with large market shares, provide specialized services, and receive significant revenues from nonpatient sources. However, quality indicators for high-price hospitals were mixed. Although these hospitals fared better than other hospitals on U.S. News & World Report rankings, which are largely based on reputation, they generally scored worse on objective measures of quality, such as postsurgical mortality rates.