Cash critical care time prices vary substantially by region and hospital ownership: A cross-sectional study.

Objectives: Emergency department (ED) patients may be billed for critical care time (current procedural terminology codes 99291 and 99292) if they receive at least 30 min of critical care services. We sought to determine the median cash (self-pay) prices for critical care time performed in the ED in the United States and assess for associations between hospital characteristics and prices.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of hospital cash prices for critical care time performed in the ED using the first 25 alphabetical states.