The DOI matches its Crossref record; the references it cites are not checked yet.
Variation in charges for 10 common blood tests in California hospitals: a cross-sectional analysis
Open accessAbstract
Objectives: To determine the variation in charges for 10 common blood tests across California hospitals in 2011, and to analyse the hospital and market-level factors that may explain any observed variation. Design, setting and participants: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the degree of charge variation between hospitals for 10 common blood tests using charge data reported by all non-federal California hospitals to the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development in 2011. Outcome measures: Charges for 10 common blood tests at California hospitals during 2011. Results: We found that charges for blood tests varied significantly between California hospitals. For example, charges for a lipid panel ranged from US$10 to US$10 169, a thousand-fold difference. Although government hospitals and teaching hospitals were found to charge significantly less than their counterparts for many blood tests, few other hospital characteristics and no market-level predictors significantly predicted charges for blood tests. Our models explained, at most, 21% of the variation between hospitals in charges for the blood test in question. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate the seemingly arbitrary nature of the charge setting process, making it difficult for patients to act as true consumers in this era of ‘consumer-directed healthcare.’
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Figures
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“A 15% relative reduction in repetitive CBCs alone would eliminate 31,500 tests annually, corresponding to approximately US$13.3 million in institution-specific charges, or US$4.1 million using California’s median hospital CBC charge.21”
From SmartAlert - Implementing Machine Learning-Driven Clinical Decision Support for Inpatient Laboratory Utilization Reduction (2026) · cites this paper as [21]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 22 · Cited by 23
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Lagnado L . California hospitals open books, showing huge price differences. Wall Street Journal 27 December 2004:A1.
- Salam R . Guest post by Oren Cass: what Steven Brill gets wrong on U.S. Health Care Costs. The National Review Online 28 February 2013. http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/341951/guest-post-oren-cass-what-steven-brill-gets-wrong-us-health-care-costs-reihan-salam (accessed 17 Dec 2013).
Metadata
- Authors
- Hsia, R. Y., Akosa Antwi, Y., & Nath, J. P.
- Affiliations
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Department of Economics, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
- Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
- Corresponding author
- Hsia, Renee Y
- ORCID
- Hsia, Renee Y
- Venue
- BMJ Open
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2014-08
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- e005482
- ISSN
- 2044-6055 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4139626
- OpenAlex
- W2099163653
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 6
- FWCI
- 9.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2014-08-25)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- BMJ Open (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- IUScholarWorks (Indiana University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (KL2TR000143)
- University of California, San Francisco
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Healthcare Policy and Management
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare cost, quality, practices
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Healthcare Quality and Management
- Keywords
- hospital charges, blood analysis, lipid profile, public hospitals, teaching hospitals, health care costs, California hospitals
- MeSH terms
- Blood Cell Count, Blood Chemical Analysis, Blood Coagulation Tests, California, Cross-Sectional Studies, Hospitals, Hospitals, Proprietary, Hospitals, Public, Hospitals, Teaching, Hospitals, Voluntary, Humans, Hospital Charges
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Variation in charges for 10 common blood tests in California hospitals: a cross-sectional analysis. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-005482
- The paper
- Hsia, R. Y., Akosa Antwi, Y., & Nath, J. P. (2014). Variation in charges for 10 common blood tests in California hospitals: a cross-sectional analysis. BMJ Open. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-005482
