'Convoluted' hospital pricing under scrutiny

Making the front page of the New York Times can be a cause for congratulation. Not so, unfortunately, for California Pacific Medical Center. In a lead story which ran over three pages Tuesday, the center emerges as a prime example of what the Times calls "convoluted hospital pricing." In other words, charging $2,229 for stitching up a patient's knee at its Pacific Heights campus in San Francisco, $32,901 for a heart X-ray and $20 for a codeine pill, according to CPMC records.