Hospital price transparency
Keep shoppable data consistent with your MRF
The shoppable display and the machine-readable file describe related information, but their numbers are not always supposed to match. A payer-specific negotiated charge, a cash price and a personalized out-of-pocket estimate answer different questions. Treating any difference as a violation would confuse the disclosures.
For the published-list route, compare the same service or package, code, payer and plan, hospital location, care setting and charge type. Check the dates and the included ancillary services too. A package charge should not be compared with one component charge as if they were the same unit.
For an estimator, identify the basis of the personalized amount before comparing it with an MRF field. Insurance status and the consumer's payment responsibility can make the estimate different from the hospital's negotiated charge. The CMS FAQ permits an estimator to use information needed for a personalized estimate; it does not say that the estimate must equal a published standard charge.
A recommended review record contains the public result, its date, the matched source fields, and an explanation of any difference. Ask the responsible data owner to investigate unexplained differences. This reconciliation workflow is an internal quality check, not a separately prescribed CMS matching test, and a mismatch by itself is not a compliance verdict.