Where Hospitals Charge Higher Prices for C-Sections, More C-Sections Are Performed

(p. B6) The more a hospital profits from a cesarean delivery, the more likely a woman is to get one, a new analysis suggests.

For the study, published in JAMA Network Open, researchers analyzed records of 13.2 million deliveries nationwide from 2010 to 2014, using a large database of generally healthy women.

. . .

During that period, profit from C-sections varied, from an average of $4,969 for the one-quarter of hospitals with the lowest charges to $26,129 for the quarter that charge the most.

The researchers found that compared with the one-quarter of hospitals that averaged the lowest profit per cesarean, those that made the most per formed 8 per cent more C-sections.

For the full story, see:

Nicholas Bakalar. “In Brief; Making Profits From C-Sections.” The New York Times (Tuesday, April 13, 2021): D6.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: after considerable search, I could not find this article in the online version of the NYT as of 4/24/21.)

The JAMA Network Open article discussed in the passages quoted above is:

Sakai-Bizmark, Rie, Michael G. Ross, Dennys Estevez, Lauren E. M. Bedel, Emily H. Marr, and Yusuke Tsugawa. “Evaluation of Hospital Cesarean Delivery–Related Profits and Rates in the United States.” JAMA Network Open 4, no. 3 (2021): e212235-e35.