Under Medicare’s tangled payment system, hospitals get higher reimbursements than individual doctors for cardiology treatment and other specialty services—in some cases a lot higher. The program pays a hospital $400 for an echocardiogram, $180 for a cardiac stress test, and more than $25 for an electrocardiogram, according to data from the American College of Cardiology. At a private physician’s office, Medicare pays $150 for an echocardiogram, $60 for a cardiac stress test, and $10 for an electrocardiogram.
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