As part of ongoing efforts to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for “each hospital operating within the United States” to make its standard charges available on an annual basis, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services instituted requirements beginning Jan. 1, 2019, for hospitals to publicize a list of standard charges online in a machine-readable format. The information is to be updated at least annually.

Benson Hospital has chosen to post these documents in a comma-separated values format, or CSV, as the allowable machine-readable format.

The Benson Hospital Charge Master reflects the highest price that a patient will be charged for a given service, medication, or supplies. In general, most people do not pay the full cost, whether because they have commercial insurance or other resources.