# OpenHospitalCost

> A free, public-interest index of real U.S. hospital prices — gross, cash, and
> negotiated rates — extracted from the machine-readable files hospitals are
> required to publish under 45 CFR §180, and cited to the source file and date.

## What makes this data different
Every price is an actual figure reported by the hospital, not a modeled estimate
or range. Prices are shown as the median facility rate per (hospital, procedure),
with the full payer range, isolating facility charges from professional/component
line items. Each hospital page links to the underlying machine-readable file.

## URL patterns
- /procedure/{slug} — one procedure (CPT), compared across hospitals (the money page)
- /hospital/{ccn} — one hospital's prices by procedure, with MRF provenance
- /state/{code} — hospitals with published prices in a U.S. state
- /sitemap.xml — all indexed pages

## Coverage
Launching with the largest U.S. metros and expanding outward. Coverage and the
"as of" date are shown on each page.

## Citation
Cite individual pages by URL. Figures are informational, not a quote or
guarantee of cost.