That said, hospital pricing is kinda funny. When my wife had sepsis in Jan, we went to the ER early Sunday morning. As all the good drugs are IV, she was in a ‘private’ ER room all day until early evening. (Folks that came into the ER later that day were on gurneys in teh hall right outside her door.). Bathroom was down the hall around the corner.
They told her that they had requested an inpatient bed, but it was a busy Sunday and she might not get one until the morning. The Hosp Admin checking insurance coverage told her, that since she was in a single ER room for nearly 24 hours, the $$ rate was not much different than the single room on the Med-Surg floor. Turns out she finally did get a bed at 9 pm so was in the ER for 15+ hours.
Note: Original Medicare folks need to be concerned about such differences, however, as the Med-Surg bed inpatient care is covered under Part A, which has a different deductible ($1676) than Part B, which covers the ER with a 20% copay. (Medicare Supplements can pick this up.)