Blood test, calcium

For the CPT code 82310 (Blood test, calcium), Satanta District Hospital, Clinics, & Ltcu lists a cash price of $28.00, which is slightly higher than the facility's own negotiated rate of $15.00 but lower than the gross charge of $31.00. While the facility is a Critical Access Hospital in Kansas, the data does not provide specific county or state average benchmarks for this procedure, so a direct comparison to regional averages is not possible. However, the cash price of $28.00 is notably higher than the national median paid amount of $19.00 for this service. Patients with high-deductible plans should consider that paying the cash price directly might be more cost-effective than using insurance, as commercial negotiated rates often exceed cash prices due to administrative overhead and contract structures.

The facility's Medicare benchmarking data shows a rate of $5.16, which is significantly lower than the cash price, highlighting the substantial markup typically found in commercial billing. The "vs_medicare" metric of 2.9 indicates that the cash price is nearly three times the Medicare rate, a common pattern where commercial rates are marked up well above the federal baseline. To minimize costs, patients should explicitly request an itemized billing audit before payment to ensure no unbundled charges or errors exist, as over 80% of hospital bills contain mistakes. Additionally, asking for a prompt-pay discount prior to scheduling could reduce the final amount, as hospitals often offer 20% to 50% reductions for upfront cash payments to bypass costly claims processing.