Will this visit carry a hospital facility fee?
When a hospital owns a clinic, the same visit can come with two bills: one from the doctor and one from the hospital, called a facility fee. An independent office sends one. For all 57 services the Health Care Cost Institute studied, the hospital price was higher, from 1.27 to 13.5 times the office price in 2022.
How much more the hospital is paid
Independent office
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average price paid
Hospital outpatient
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average price paid
Hospital vs office
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Three questions to ask before you book
Write down the date, the time and the name of the person who answers.
If a facility fee shows up on the bill
Your notes to keep
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Sources
- Prices: Health Care Cost Institute, Prices in Hospital Outpatient Departments are Consistently Higher than Physician Offices among Site-Neutral Services (August 2025). Average prices paid for people with employer insurance, 2018 to 2022. Only the service groups HCCI states in its text are listed here.
- Who owns doctors' practices: U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-25-107450 (September 2025). It cites the AMA's count that about 47 percent of physicians were employed by a hospital system, or worked in a practice it fully or partly owned, in 2024, up from 29 percent in 2012.
- Federal: the No Surprises Act Good Faith Estimate and dispute process for people who are uninsured or self-pay (CMS: your rights), and the Hospital Price Transparency rule, 45 CFR Part 180.
- State laws: each state's citation and a link to its text are shown when you pick the state.
Checked 2026-10-26.
General information, not legal or medical advice. What you owe depends on your insurance plan and the clinic.
In an emergency, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.