Shoppable Service
A common, non-urgent medical service that patients can plan and price-compare in advance, required by CMS to be listed with plain-language descriptions and prices on every hospital's website.
Shoppable Service is a term from U.S. hospital cost and quality reporting — the field that produces the CMS Hospital Compare program, the Medicare Inpatient Payment files, and the patient-facing tools built on top of them. The definition below covers what the term means in CMS files, what it does not mean, and how it interacts with the other measures CMS publishes. On the LakeQuality value rubric, Shoppable Service is one of the inputs (directly or indirectly) to the combined cost-and-quality grade. Understanding how the term is computed at CMS — what counts and what does not — is part of reading hospital pages defensibly.
Each hospital page on LakeQuality surfaces the specific Shoppable Service value for that facility (when CMS reports one), so the general definition here translates into a concrete data point on the per-hospital pages you actually use.
How It Works
The Hospital Price Transparency Rule requires every hospital to display at least 300 shoppable services, or as many as the hospital offers if fewer than 300, in a consumer-friendly format with plain-language descriptions, prices, and any service package components. CMS specifies 70 mandatory shoppable services that every hospital offering them must publish, spanning common imaging (MRI brain without contrast, CT abdomen with contrast, mammogram screening), outpatient surgery (colonoscopy, cataract removal, tonsillectomy, cesarean delivery), lab tests (comprehensive metabolic panel, lipid panel, TSH), and preventive procedures. For each service the hospital must publish gross charge, discounted cash price, de-identified minimum and maximum negotiated charges, and payer-specific negotiated rates. The No Surprises Act adds a parallel Good Faith Estimate requirement for uninsured and self-pay patients, extending price information beyond the 300-service list. Shoppable service data reveals massive variation: a screening colonoscopy (CPT 45378) ranges from roughly $600 to over $5,500 cash price across U.S. hospitals, and an MRI brain without contrast (CPT 70551) ranges from about $350 to over $3,500. Hospitals that implemented true consumer displays, such as Hendrick Health in Texas and Turquoise Health partners, have seen measurable patient traffic to shoppable services pages. Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and freestanding imaging centers frequently underprice hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) by 40-70% for the same procedure, because hospital outpatient billing includes a facility fee that an ASC does not charge.
Related Terms
- Hospital Price Transparency, A federal rule (effective January 1, 2021) requiring all U.S. hospitals to publicly display their prices, including chargemaster rates, negotiated rates with each insurer, and cash-pay discounts.
- Machine-Readable File (MRF), The comprehensive hospital pricing file, required by the Hospital Price Transparency Rule, containing gross charges, cash prices, and payer-specific negotiated rates for every item and service.
- Cash-Pay Rate (Discounted Cash Price), The price a hospital charges self-pay or uninsured patients who pay directly, often substantially lower than both the chargemaster and some commercial negotiated rates.
- Good Faith Estimate, A written estimate of expected charges for scheduled healthcare services that uninsured or self-pay patients have the right to receive under the No Surprises Act, effective January 1, 2022.
- Negotiated Rate, The payer-specific price a hospital has agreed to accept from a particular insurance plan for a service, usually 30-60% below the chargemaster gross charge.
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About This Definition
This definition is part of the HospitalCostData Hospital Pricing Glossary, 47 terms explaining hospital costs, quality ratings, and healthcare billing. Written for patients, journalists, researchers, and healthcare professionals.