You often don't get what you pay for?at least when it comes to hip- or knee-replacement surgeries. A new study of 2,750 hospitals across the U.S. found a staggering disparity between what the hospitals officially charge for hip- and knee-replacement surgeries before any insurance adjustments. One low-volume hospital in California officially charges a whopping $223,373 for such surgeries, while a high-volume hospital in Akron charges just $15,465, according to a survey by the NerdWallet Health cost-comparison Web site. And hospitals that performed more than 200 of those surgeries annually tended to have lower rates of patients readmitted for complications such as infections than hospitals that did fewer procedures, the survey found.
