Pricing standard
How prices are defined
A price can be compared only when it is clear what it buys. Every price a hospital lists on Sylk Health is held to one definition, the same in every country and for every hospital. This page sets out that definition in the terms hospitals agree to when they list.
In brief
- Unit
- One catalogue procedure
- Price
- A minimum and a maximum
- Currency
- U.S. dollars
- Scope
- The procedure and the stay, to discharge
- Set by
- The hospital
- Dated
- Every licensed figure
What a procedure is
A procedure is an entry in the Sylk Health catalogue, where procedures are grouped by specialty.
Sylk Health writes the name and description of every entry. A hospital selects the procedures it performs and cannot edit that text.
Two hospitals that list the same entry are therefore pricing the same procedure, described in the same words.
What a listed price is
For each procedure it offers, a hospital enters a minimum and a maximum in U.S. dollars. The minimum is what a straightforward case costs. The maximum is the most the hospital will charge for that procedure within the scope set out below.
A range is used because patients having the same operation can need different lengths of stay or different care. A single figure would force a hospital either to price every case as the most complex or to absorb the difference.
The hospital sets the price. Sylk Health does not set, adjust or negotiate it, and the listing terms bar Sylk Health from advising any hospital on what to charge.
What every price must cover
The listing terms set one scope for every hospital. Each item within it is included in the listed range, whether or not the hospital itemizes it.
Inside the price
- Anesthesia
- Operating room and facility charges
- Room and board for the expected stay
- Surgeon and other practitioner fees
- Implants, devices and consumables used as standard for the procedure
- Routine pre-operative tests and post-operative medication
- Complications the hospital treats before discharge
- Any other cost the hospital ordinarily incurs in performing the procedure under its usual clinical protocol
Outside the price
- Care after discharge
- Treatment of an unrelated condition
- Emergency presentations
- Non-medical costs, such as travel and accommodation
Where the price ends
Discharge means the end of the admission, as the hospital's records show it. For a procedure with no admission, it means the end of the visit at which the procedure is performed.
How hospitals are held to it
The price reflects what is charged
A hospital that lists a price warrants that it is accurate, current and not misleading, and that it genuinely reflects what the hospital charges.
Nothing is added after booking
No separate charge may be added after booking for anything within the scope above.
The charge falls within the range
The amount charged must fall within the listed range. The one exception is a charge the patient agrees to in writing before it is incurred.
Prices are kept current
A hospital must update a price within 30 days of any change. It must also correct, without undue delay, any price it knows or should know has become materially inaccurate.
Sylk Health may check the amounts a hospital charges against its listed range. Charging above the range in more than 15 percent of completed bookings over any 12 months is a material breach of the listing terms.
That figure is how a pattern of overcharging is proved. It is not an allowance. The duty to stay within the range applies to every booking.
Where a bill exceeds a listed maximum, Sylk Health asks the hospital to account for the difference against this definition. A price that is not honored is removed, and repeated failure ends the listing.
How licensed figures are dated and combined
Every figure Sylk Health licenses carries the date the hospital last submitted or confirmed it. The listing terms bar Sylk Health from presenting out-of-date pricing as current.
Each price stays attributed to the hospital that posted it.
For each procedure, the figure for a country runs from the lowest minimum to the highest maximum posted by listed hospitals in that country. It shows how many hospitals contributed and the date of the most recent update. A country figure drawn from fewer than two hospitals is flagged.
The United States figure
Where a United States figure appears next to a listing, it is Sylk Health's own estimate, built from Medicare rates and published cash prices.
It is not a price any hospital has offered, and it is not a quote.
It is not part of the licensed data. For a buyer's comparison, Sylk Health supplies the outside figure, and the inside figure is the buyer's own claims.
What the standard does not do
The standard does not make a price reasonable. It makes a price attributable to the hospital that set it, dated, and enforceable against that hospital.
Whether a price is reasonable is for the buyer to judge, by comparing it with other prices for the same procedure.
Using these prices as an institution
How health plans, administrators and employers license the data.
Disclosure: Sylk Health supplies procedure-price data and earns a commission from providers on bookings completed through its platform. It would benefit from broader use of externally benchmarked prices for medical procedures, and from any gap between those prices and prices in the United States.
Sylk Health operates a marketplace platform only. It is not a healthcare provider, clinical intermediary, broker, referral service or travel service. It does not select, match, steer or recommend providers, does not rank providers by clinical quality, and does not arrange travel, accommodation, interpretation or visas. All providers listed are independent and contract directly with patients. Each provider warrants its own accreditation against the bodies listed in the Provider Listing Agreement. Sylk Health checks public registers before listing and does not assess clinical quality. Naming an accrediting body implies no endorsement by it. Every listed price is a USD range posted by the provider, who keeps it current and states what it includes and excludes. Where a United States figure is shown it is Sylk Health's own estimate from Medicare rates and published cash prices, not a provider price or a quote. Actual costs depend on the individual case.