Truepenny

What will it actually cost?

Truepenny shows the prices hospitals negotiate with each insurance company — and the cash prices they don't advertise — for 296 hospitals across Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Texas and Washington. Straight from the hospitals' own federally required files. Free, no login.

ImagingEndoscopyDiagnosticLabMaternitySurgeryTherapyVisits

Same brain MRI. Same city.

Median commercial negotiated rates for a brain MRI without contrast, from three Seattle-area hospitals' own price files — a 4.8× spread.

median · $887
Harborview Medical Center
$441
St. Clare Hospital (Lakewood)
$887
EvergreenHealth Monroe
$2,110
SOURCE: hospital standard-charges files · retrieved through 2026-08-15

All 23 Seattle-area hospitals compared →

How this exists

01

Hospitals must post their prices.

Since 2021, federal law has required every U.S. hospital to publish its actual prices — every insurer's negotiated rate and the cash price — in machine-readable files.

02

We read the files.

Almost nobody else does: they're huge, messy, and inconsistent. We collect, clean, and standardize them, and keep the receipts.

03

You compare.

By procedure, hospital, and insurer — with the source and date on every number.

Sometimes the cash price beats your insurance rate. It's legal to ask. See a real example →

Look up a procedure

Hospitals

Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos, TX
Bremerton–Silverdale–Port Orchard, WA
Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington, TX
Denver–Aurora–Centennial, CO
Eugene–Springfield, OR
Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands, TX
Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim, CA
Olympia–Lacey–Tumwater, WA
Phoenix–Mesa–Chandler, AZ
Portland–Vancouver–Hillsboro, OR–WA
Sacramento–Roseville–Folsom, CA
Salem, OR
San Antonio–New Braunfels, TX
San Diego–Chula Vista–Carlsbad, CA
San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue, WA
Spokane–Spokane Valley, WA
Tucson, AZ
Walla Walla, WA
Yakima, WA