Childbirth is the most common reason for an inpatient hospital admission among people with employer-sponsored insurance. Despite how routine it is, the price of giving birth can vary widely depending on where you live, which hospital you use, and which insurer you have.
Using Transparency in Coverage (TiC) data, we set out to better understand how much prices for childbirth vary across Pennsylvania in 2025. The analysis draws on data processed by Gigasheet, which compiles and standardizes the machine-readable files that insurers are now required to publish. These files include the negotiated rates between payers and providers – the prices insurers have agreed to pay hospitals for specific services. For more information on the methods used for this research brief and our recommendations on using TiC data for research please check out our other work on the subject.
To make the analysis as comparable as possible, we focused on the most common childbirth admission type: MS-DRG 807 (vaginal delivery without complications). This DRG accounts for nearly half of all childbirth admissions among commercially insured patients and provides a consistent benchmark for comparing prices.
Childbirth in the Most Expensive Metro Area Cost Twice as Much as the Least Expensive Metro Across metro areas in Pennsylvania, median negotiated prices for this single type of delivery ranged from $5,505 in Bloomsburg-Berwick to $12,244 in Lebanon, meaning the highest-priced metro area was more than twice as expensive as the lowest (Figure 1). Lebanon, Chambersburg, Reading, and Harrisburg had the highest median childbirth prices in Pennsylvania in 2025. In contrast, Bloomsburg, Meadville, Youngstown, and Bradford had the lowest median childbirth prices.
Even within metro areas, there was a wide range in the price of childbirth (Figure 2). On average, the highest negotiated prices were 2.7 times higher than the lowest prices within the same market. In Philadelphia, the range was particularly large: the highest price was $24,323, compared to a low of just $4,100, a nearly sixfold difference. In contrast, the Bradford metro area showed the least variation, with prices ranging from $3,913 to $6,238. Looking at specific hospitals also illustrates the wide variation in childbirth prices. In 2025, across Pennsylvania, median childbirth prices ranged from $4,938 at Punxsutawney Area Hospital in Indiana, PA, to $14,468 at Ephrata Community Hospital in Lancaster, PA, a nearly threefold difference.
Same Service, Same Hospital, Different Prices Not only does this analysis reveal different childbirth prices by hospital, but there are different prices within the same hospital. Depending on the insurer, the same service at the same hospital may have multiple prices. On average, the highest price for childbirth at a given hospital was 1.9 times higher than the lowest price at the same hospital. The degree of variation, however, differed widely. There were some hospitals for which childbirth prices were nearly identical across insurer, while in others there was a nearly fivefold variation in price for the same service at the same hospital.
No Single Insurer had Consistently High or Low prices
Although we observed variation in prices by insurance company, they did not have uniformly high or low prices. Across Pennsylvania, median negotiated prices ranged from $5,884 for UPMC Health Plan to $10,197 for Aetna.
The amount that each insurer paid for the same childbirth service varied across hospitals (Figure 4). UPMC Health Plan had the narrowest spread, with prices ranging from $3,824 to $11,211, while Geisinger had the widest, from $2,365 to $24,323. This suggests that differences in negotiated rates are not driven not just by insurers, but by the specific contracts between insurers and individual hospitals.
How do these findings compare to prior research?
The patterns we observe in TiC data are broadly consistent with earlier studies using commercial claims data. Prior HCCI research found that childbirth prices varied by roughly 2.6-fold across hospitals within the same metro area, which is similar to the variation observed here (2.7 fold variation across hospitals in the same metro area).
However, TiC data provides a different lens. It allows us to identify and name payers and providers and see the full set of negotiated rates between them. Many commercial claims datasets, including HCCI, are not allowed to identify specific providers and payers, which is a limitation of those data sources. The provider and payer transparency in the TiC data makes it possible to identify specific high- and low-priced providers and insurers in the market.
An important limitation: no information on utilization
Despite its strengths, TiC data has an important limitation: it does not include information on how often services are used. While we can observe that a given price exists in a contract, we do not know whether any patients actually received care at that price.
As a result, TiC data alone cannot be used to calculate an average price paid across all childbirths or to estimate total spending. Doing so would require combining TiC data with claims data that includes measures of utilization. For this reason, our analysis focuses on price levels and variation for a specific service, in this case, DRG 807, rather than attempting to estimate overall costs of childbirth.
In contrast, HCCI analyses childbirth using claims data, reports the average price of childbirth admissions across all DRGs and groups admissions into vaginal and c-section deliveries and complicated and noncomplicated births. These average price estimates are possible with claims data because estimates can be weighted for utilization. Claims data can also be used to calculate additional metrics beyond price including total spending, out-of-pocket spending, admission rates, and the use and costs of related care. More information on the costs of childbirth using HCCI data can be found on our website.
Transparency is a First Step in Addressing Price Variation
The findings highlight a central feature of the U.S. health care system: even for a common and routine service like childbirth, prices vary dramatically across markets, hospitals, and insurers. Across the State, pregnant people can be admitted to the hospital for an uncomplicated vaginal delivery and face wildly different prices. Childbirth prices vary by where they live, which hospital they go to, and what insurance they have. Even within metro areas, within hospitals, and within insurance company, the price of an uncomplicated vaginal delivery can differ dramatically.
- Within a single metro area, the price of childbirth varied by as much as 6 times (e.g., the highest price was 6 times higher than the lowest price).
- Within a single hospital, the price of childbirth varied by 1.9 times on average.
- Within a single insurance company, the price of childbirth varied by as much as 10 times.
This kind of price variation is evidence of how irrational health care prices in the US can be. For a relatively standard hospital admission, such a wide range of prices even within a local area seems hard to justify. The high costs of childbirth burdens families and makes it difficult to plan for these costs. If patients do not have a choice in insurance plans or the hospital at which they deliver, they may be exposed to higher prices without any alternative. Transparency in Coverage data offers a powerful new tool for understanding these prices and price differences, but substantial work remains to make care more affordable and to reduce the wide variation in health care prices.