Selected by rule from this quarter’s files, not written by an editor.
Each one links straight into the explorer with the filters already set.
Open the explorer →
Widest spread in the state
The same ed visit, level 4 runs $387 to $6,518 in Colorado
$387 Sedgwick County Memorial Hospitalmedian $2,024$6,518 St Francis Hospital - Interquest
62 hospitals publish a rate for it. 17× between the cheapest and the dearest.
Biggest gap between two insurers, same hospital
At Sky Ridge Medical Center, Cigna pays 12.6× what Anthem BCBS pays for the same x-ray, lower back, 4+ views
Anthem BCBS$215
Cigna$2,700
Same building, same procedure, same code. The difference is which card is in your wallet.
Furthest above the Medicare benchmark
Arkansas Valley Regional Medical Center is paid 6.6× the Medicare rate across everything it prices
100%Medicare
308%state median
660%this hospital
Medicare’s payment is hospital-specific and roughly pegged to the cost of care. The median across this hospital’s 28 procedures is 660% of it, against 308% for the typical Colorado hospital.
Highest price over estimated cost
HCA HealthONE hospitals are paid 7.3× what it is estimated to cost them to deliver care
HCA HealthONE7.3×
Intermountain3.6×
UCHealth3.2×
CommonSpirit3.2×
Cost estimated from each hospital’s own federal cost report (HCRIS) — the same filings state regulators use. Estimates, not accounting truth.
Findings are chosen by rule, not by hand. To be eligible a cell needs at least 5 published plan rates and a commercial rate between 80% and 1500% of Medicare, so partial or component-level pricing in a hospital’s file cannot produce a headline. Every figure is on the page it links to.
Researchers, newsrooms, employers and funders: exports, API,
commissioned analysis, and how to fund the next state are on
Data & research.