Under certain circumstances you can price shop for hospitals. For certain types of procedures, especially self pay ones like elective or cosmetic ones, the mar

Under certain circumstances you can price shop for hospitals. For certain types of procedures, especially self pay ones like elective or cosmetic ones, the market works fairly decently. There are other circumstances, that I recently dealt with in our family, where someone shows up to the ER with an emergent issue, and then, say, based on what's found in the ER, winds up in the ICU for a significant period of time. It's extremely difficult to price shop this, because you don't know what you're going to be buying until after you've already chosen the hospital. This is also why provider networks were invented, so that these prices are negotiated in advance.