Understanding Hospital Charges

Hospital Charges

We are committed to helping you understand the costs of your child’s care at Lurie Children’s. Lurie Children’s is one of the top pediatric hospitals in the nation, providing 24-7 access to the highest quality, family-centered care, Sub pediatric specialists and pediatric nursing for your child. Many more hospital resources are required to care for babies, children and adolescents, compared to adults.

Below is a comprehensive list of our standard charges. We are required by federal law to post this information.

The amount paid by most consumers may be significantly less than these standard charges. This is because charges may not include discounts required by government payers and negotiated with health plans, or may not include copays, financial assistance, deductibles, or additional discounts offered to eligible patients.

Hospital charges also do not include fees for professional services by physicians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, radiologists and other providers. You may receive separate bills from the hospital and the doctors involved in your child’s care which also reflect the discounts from charges mentioned above.

Comparison Shopping

Please keep in mind that charge information may not be useful when "comparison shopping" between hospitals. This is because descriptions for a service, and what is included in that description, could vary from hospital to hospital. It is also important to consider a hospital’s quality and pediatric expertise when comparative shopping.

Since we provide the highest level of care for the sickest children, some of our charges might be higher than hospitals that don’t offer the same kind of resources. At Lurie Children's, your child will receive the highest quality care from the top pediatric experts and nurses in the field. We offer highly specialized, multidisciplinary care and state-of-the-art technology to treat children with the most complex health problems. We also make sure that your child receives the most appropriate care and support. For example, if your child needs medical imaging, we ensure that the radiation exposure is the lowest possible, as part of the Image Gently process. Our family services team also provides social workers, chaplains, child life specialists and creative arts therapists to support the entire family from diagnosis through discharge.

If you would like to gauge charge estimates across hospitals, it helps to have specific insurance codes for a service. You can ask your physician to give you the technical name of the recommended service as well as the specific codes. You can then share these with your insurance provider to check how much you would need to pay.

What Will I Have to Pay?

What you pay will depend on the actual care your child needs and your health plan details. To find out what your out-of-pocket expenses are likely to be, please contact your health insurance provider for the most accurate estimate.

For common shoppable procedures you may use our cost estimate tool.

You can also call our Patient Financial Services at 312.227.1230. If your child doesn’t have health insurance, please ask about our Financial Assistance Program.

Tax Identification Number 36-2170833 Lurie Children's Standard Charge File

Download Standard Charge File (.JSON file)

Cost Estimate Tool

Lurie Children’s understands that pricing for healthcare services can be complicated based on insurance coverage and specific plan details. We provide a cost estimation tool for our patient families to use. For any questions regarding estimates, please call 312.227.1333.