Heart Attack Cost in Massachusetts — Compare All Hospitals
Acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) with complications — discharged alive.
What this hospital charge usually covers
The gross-charge number above is the hospital's facility bill for heart attack. Here's what's typically inside that price (typical inpatient stay: 3–5 days):
Included in the hospital bill
- Emergency department evaluation and cardiac workup
- Inpatient cardiac monitoring (often in a coronary care unit)
- Diagnostic catheterization and any required stenting
- Inpatient medications and routine labs during admission
Usually billed separately
- Cardiologist, ED physician, and any interventional specialist professional fees
- Ambulance transport
- Outpatient cardiac rehab and follow-up visits after discharge
- Long-term medications (antiplatelets, statins, beta-blockers)
Quality signals to check before picking a hospital
Price alone won't tell you which hospital does heart attack best. These are the CMS quality measures that matter most for this specific procedure. Click any hospital below for its full profile, then look for these:
Heart-Attack Mortality (30-day)
The single most important quality signal — how often patients survive 30 days after a heart attack at this hospital.
Time to Fibrinolysis (STEMI)
For ST-elevation heart attacks treated with clot-busting drugs, every minute counts. Tracks median minutes from arrival to treatment.
Heart-Attack Readmissions
Reflects discharge planning, medication reconciliation, and outpatient cardiology handoff.
When the cheapest hospital may not be the best fit
The list below sorts by price. For heart attack, the lowest price isn't automatically the best fit — these are situations where it's worth weighing additional factors against price. None of the below is medical advice; talk to your doctor about what applies to your specific situation.
- Heart-attack admissions aren't shoppable in real time — in an emergency, the hospital that can get a patient to a cath lab fastest is typically the right call regardless of price.
- This page is more useful after discharge to evaluate where care was delivered, or ahead of time for chronic-condition planning.
Questions to ask your hospital or insurer
The gross charge is the starting point. These are the procedure-specific questions to ask before you commit:
- During an active heart attack: skip this list and call 911 — go to the nearest hospital with a cardiac cath lab.
- After discharge: was every physician who treated me in-network? (ED, cardiologist, interventionalist, hospitalist often bill separately.)
- What outpatient cardiac rehab program is recommended? Is it covered?
Hospitals ranked by gross charge
- 1
Lowell General Hospital
Lowell, MA
Gross charge $19,320Cash pay $13,524 - 2
MelroseWakefield Hospital
Melrose, MA
Gross charge $19,320Cash pay $13,524 - 3
Tufts Medical Center
Boston, MA
Gross charge $19,320Cash pay $13,524 - 4
Cambridge Health Alliance
Cambridge, MA
Gross charge $20,326 - 5
Cooley Dickinson Hospital
Northampton, MA
Gross charge $27,851Cash pay $20,888 - 6
Mercy Medical Center
Springfield, MA
Gross charge $45,194Cash pay $24,857 - 7
Newton-Wellesley Hospital
Newton, MA
Gross charge $53,130 - 8
Umass Memorial Healthalliance Hospitals
Leominster, MA
Gross charge $58,847 - 9
Umass Memorial Health - Harrington Hospital
Southbridge, MA
Gross charge $58,847 - 10
Umass Memorial Healthcare-Marlborough Hospital
Marlborough, MA
Gross charge $58,847 - 11
Umass Memorial Medical Center/University Campus
Worcester, MA
Gross charge $58,847 - 12
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Boston, MA
Gross charge $93,977 - 13
Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital
Jamaica Plain, MA
Gross charge $93,977 - 14
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA
Gross charge $111,341 - 15
Holyoke Medical Center
Holyoke, MA
Gross charge — - 16
Heywood Hospital
Gardner, MA
Gross charge — - 17
Athol Hospital
Athol, MA
Gross charge —
14 Massachusetts hospitals publish gross charges for heart attack (DRG 281). Prices range from $19,320 to $111,341 — roughly $92,021 apart. The cheapest is Lowell General Hospital in Lowell; the most expensive is Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The state average sits at $52,796.
The number you see is each hospital's published "list price" — the gross charge for the facility component of heart attack. Insurance plans negotiate substantial discounts, Medicare and Medicaid pay fixed federal rates, and uninsured patients can usually qualify for a cash-pay discount. But the gross charge still works as a useful benchmark: a hospital that lists heart attack at twice the price of another typically negotiates higher rates with insurers too, and quotes more for uninsured patients.
If you're scheduling heart attack in Massachusetts, sort the list below by price, then click each hospital name to see its quality profile — CMS overall star rating, surgical-safety measures, readmission rates, patient-experience scores. The cheapest hospital isn't always the right call. Teaching hospitals often charge more because they take complex cases, and a higher-rated community hospital may deliver equivalent outcomes for a straightforward case at a lower price. Use the price column to narrow the field; use the quality data to make the final call.
Pricing comes from each hospital's Machine-Readable File (MRF), published under the federal Hospital Price Transparency Rule. Massachusetts hospitals missing from the list either don't perform heart attack in volume, haven't published a usable price for DRG 281 in their most recent MRF, or fell below our data-quality thresholds (we filter out clearly erroneous entries like $0 charges). The list refreshes as hospitals update their files.