Hospitals are supposed to publish all of their charges, listing various procedures and medications that they get paid for. It is called a chargemaster. Usually, they also report what price they have negotiated with the insurance plans.

This was an estimate. They sent it to us on Friday afternoon at 4:30. His surgery was Monday at noon. I spent the entire morning trying to get answers. I was told it’s an estimate based on other procedures and as such they didn’t have. Breakdown. Was literally a number on a sheet.

I understand. I was referring to your point about them making up numbers. The estimate is based on the 'charges', and you can see how much your insurance agreed to pay. There is very little in common between the two sets of numbers.