FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
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You may have heard that as of January 1, 2019, hospitals have price information online. Here is important information to help you understand what you are looking at.
- A chargemaster is a list of medical codes and prices for everything a hospital provides to patients.
- Each hospital has its own chargemaster list that is used for billing purposes.
- The chargemaster list is not the negotiated price between hospitals and insurers, and it is not the price that most patients would pay for care.
- The chargemaster list is not the best tool for patients to figure out the cost of their health care services.
- Most people would not know all the medical codes that would be used for their care before they receive treatment.
- The prices on the chargemaster list are not the actual payment rates that hospitals receive. And chargemaster prices are almost never the actual amount a patient is responsible for.
The best way to understand what you will pay out-of-pocket is to work with your hospital and your insurer. In general:
- Individuals with insurance will pay any copayments, coinsurance, or deductible due.
- Individuals without insurance might be eligible for financial assistance or charity care, or may be able to receive a reduced price from the hospital.
Below are links to two data bases. The first is a listing of almost 4,000 different charges within our “chargemaster” for services rendered at the hospital. The second is data showing the average total charges for inpatient services by diagnosis related groupings (DRG’s) for discharged patients from 10/01/2017 through 9/30/2018. This may approximate what your total charges could be if you require similar services.
Punxsutawney Area Hospital Price Transparency Machine Readable File
Punxsutawney Area Hospital Price Transparency Machine Readable File- CSV
Providers Covered under the Financial Assistance Program
Financial Assistance Application
Medical Debt Financing- AblePay
Nondiscrimination Policy Statement
Your Rights and Protections Against Surprise Medical Billing