Prolonged Ventilator Support Cost in South Dakota — Compare All Hospitals

6 South Dakota hospitals publish gross charges for prolonged ventilator support (DRG 207). Prices range from $101,811 to $247,902 — roughly 2×. The cheapest is Prairie Lakes Hospital in Watertown; the most expensive is Monument Health Custer Hospital in Custer. The state average sits at $223,554.

These numbers are list prices — what the hospital bills before any insurance adjustment. 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 prolonged ventilator support at twice the price of another typically negotiates higher rates with insurers too, and quotes more for uninsured patients.

You usually don't choose a hospital during an urgent prolonged ventilator support admission. This page is for the planning side: patients with chronic conditions weighing their options, caregivers picking ahead of time, or employers comparing in-network facilities. Click any hospital name for its full quality profile — CMS overall star rating, mortality and readmission rates, patient-experience scores. When two nearby hospitals look similar on quality, the one with lower published charges is the safer default for routine medical admissions.

Pricing comes from each hospital's Machine-Readable File (MRF), published under the federal Hospital Price Transparency Rule. South Dakota hospitals missing from the list either don't perform prolonged ventilator support in volume, haven't published a usable price for DRG 207 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.