About WV Health Prices
Free, searchable hospital price data for every West Virginian.
Where does this data come from?
Federal law requires every hospital in the United States to publish a machine-readable file listing their standard charges — including rates negotiated with each insurance plan. This requirement, enforced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), took effect in 2021 and has been expanded annually since.
WV Health Prices downloads, parses, and standardizes those files from hospitals across West Virginia and loads them into a searchable database. Every rate you see here came directly from a hospital's own published file. We do not estimate, model, or adjust the numbers. For a complete list of data sources, see our Data Sources page.
Currently covering
What is a negotiated rate — and what is it not?
A negotiated rate is the amount a hospital and an insurance company have agreed to accept as full payment for a specific service. It is not what you will be billed, and it is not necessarily what you will pay out of pocket.
Your actual cost depends on three things your insurer controls, not the hospital:
Deductible
The amount you pay each year before your insurance starts covering costs. If you haven't met your deductible, you may owe the full negotiated rate. If you have, your insurer covers most of it.
Coinsurance
Your share of the cost after your deductible is met — typically 10% to 30% of the negotiated rate. A $400 negotiated rate with 20% coinsurance means you owe $80, assuming your deductible is met.
Plan design
Not all BlueCross plans are the same. Your employer's specific contract with your insurer determines your exact deductible, coinsurance, copay amounts, and which hospitals are in your network tier.
The negotiated rate is the ceiling — the most your insurer will allow the hospital to charge. Your actual bill is calculated from that number based on your plan.
So what can I actually use this for?
More than you might expect.
Compare hospitals for the same procedure. If Hospital A has negotiated a rate of $340 with your insurer and Hospital B has negotiated $890 for the same service, that difference flows through to your cost regardless of your plan design. Lower negotiated rates mean lower costs for you and your insurer.
See how your insurer's rates stack up. Payer-specific rates vary dramatically across hospitals and insurers. This data shows you what your insurer has agreed to pay — and lets you see whether switching hospitals could save you money.
Estimate your share. Use the cost estimator on any hospital detail page to enter your deductible remaining and coinsurance rate. We'll calculate an approximate out-of-pocket amount based on the negotiated rate. It's an estimate — but it's closer to an answer than anything else publicly available in West Virginia.
Know before you go. Price transparency is most useful before you receive care. Checking rates in advance — especially for planned procedures — gives you information most patients never had access to before this data was made public.
What this tool doesn't cover
We want to be honest about the gaps.
Facility fees and professional fees are sometimes separate. A hospital procedure often has two components: a facility fee (what you see here) and a separate charge from the physician or specialist. Both may apply to your bill.
Not every hospital is covered yet. We are actively expanding coverage. If your hospital is missing, check back — or contact us and we'll prioritize it.
Some rates may be outdated. Hospitals are required to update their files annually. We refresh our data regularly, but there may be a lag between a hospital updating their file and our database reflecting it.
This is not a cost guarantee. The rates shown are what hospitals have published. Your actual bill depends on your specific plan, the services actually rendered, and any applicable facility or physician fees.
About the project
WV Health Prices is a product of Civic Health Data LLC. It was built because no free, searchable, statewide price transparency tool existed for West Virginia — and because the data to build one was sitting in publicly required hospital files that most people didn't know existed.
If you are an employer, benefits administrator, or healthcare organization interested in partnership or data access, contact us at contact@wvhealthprices.com.