Who knows how much it costs? University of Utah does.

It's pretty hard to reduce costs in healthcare if you don't know how much things costs. Really. Most hospitals do not have a handle on how much it costs to provide care for patients. That is astounding to most of us since we know how much the bills are when we get them. We also know that the first bill should be ignored because they haven't yet talked with our insurance companies. This is crazy, right?

Yes it is. Fortunately there are a few organizations that are actually figuring out costs in a systematic way and then acting on that information to standardize costs for routine procedures and bit by bit bringing down the cost of a hospital stay. Bravo University of Utah! Check it out.