Back Problems Cost in Washington — Compare All Hospitals

5 Washington hospitals list a gross charge for back problems under the federal price-transparency rule, with quoted prices spanning $19,430 to $45,846. The cheapest is Jefferson Healthcare in Port Townsend; the most expensive is Valley Medical Center in Renton. The state average sits at $32,929.

What's listed is each hospital's gross charge — its published price for the inpatient stay, before any insurance discount. Insurance plans negotiate substantial discounts, Medicare and Medicaid pay fixed federal rates, and uninsured patients can usually qualify for a cash-pay discount. But the gross charge still works as a useful benchmark: a hospital that lists back problems at twice the price of another typically negotiates higher rates with insurers too, and quotes more for uninsured patients.

If you're scheduling back problems in Washington, sort the list below by price, then click each hospital name to see its quality profile — CMS overall star rating, surgical-safety measures, readmission rates, patient-experience scores. The cheapest hospital isn't always the right call. Teaching hospitals often charge more because they take complex cases, and a higher-rated community hospital may deliver equivalent outcomes for a straightforward case at a lower price. Use the price column to narrow the field; use the quality data to make the final call.

Pricing comes from each hospital's Machine-Readable File (MRF), published under the federal Hospital Price Transparency Rule. Washington hospitals missing from the list either don't perform back problems in volume, haven't published a usable price for DRG 551 in their most recent MRF, or fell below our data-quality thresholds (we filter out clearly erroneous entries like $0 charges). The list refreshes as hospitals update their files.