Coney Island Hospital Included In List Of Most Affordable NY Hospitals

Coney Island Hospital (2601 Ocean Parkway) made it to the top 10 list of most affordable hospitals in New York State, and is ranked number one in the five boroughs. According to a report by Nerd Wallet, Coney Island Hospital ranked 8th overall when it comes to affordability statewide, providing affordable treatment for a slew of procedures, including hip and knee replacement.

Nerd Wallet briefly summarized the history, service level and treatment options available at Coney Island Hospital:

Originally a First Aid station in 1875, this hospital has grown to a 371-bed facility with interpreter services in over 130 languages. Coney Island Hospital has been recognized for clinical innovation in primary care, adolescent medicine, nuclear medicine, and emergency services, and the hospital discharges nearly 20,000 patients annually. While the hospital offers affordable treatments for respiratory failure, hip and knee replacement, and knee dislocation, a low patient satisfaction rate of 54 percent should be noted.

We counter that last sentence by referring back to our previous post about the somewhat less-than-reliable hospital rating system.

In case you were wondering how Nerd Wallet came up with their scores in the otherwise difficult practice of trying to pin down health care cost comparisons, they provided their methodology, ranking affordability, procedures/diagnoses, patient satisfaction and hospital characteristics:

Affordability: Using CMS Medicare Provider Charge Data, we first determined the 50 largest hospitals in New York (of 161 total) by calculating the total number of Medicare patient discharges per year. We then calculated which of these 50 has the lowest price for each of the 100 most common medical procedures, and then summed the number of times that each hospital had the lowest price. For least affordable hospitals, we did the same, but calculated which hospital had the highest price for each procedure. The data are for services billed for Medicare patients.

Procedures/diagnoses: For the procedures that each hospital was least or most expensive, we presented the most commonly known.

Patient satisfaction: Patient satisfaction rates were obtained from HCAHPS, a nationally administered survey on patient satisfaction. “Satisfied” was taken to be patients who reported, “I would definitely recommend this hospital” on this survey.

Hospital characteristics: Individual hospital websites and U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals.

By comparison, Maimonides Medical Center (4802 10th Avenue) was ranked third on the list of least affordable hospitals in the state of New York. Interestingly, Maimonides patient satisfaction rate was only two points higher than Coney Island’s.