A sepsis admission with a major complication in Washington pays the hospital about $15,287. The fees for the hospitalist’s six visits on it come to about $476.

Medicare’s payment per service, 2018 to 2024

In 2024 dollars, Medicare’s payment per service billed by the median Washington hospitalist was about $103 in 2018 and about $85 in 2024: 17% less per service. The median hospitalist also billed Original Medicare fewer services: 554 then, 350 now. These files hold Original Medicare only, no Medicare Advantage, and they counted 297 Washington hospitalists in 2018 and 644 in 2024. For a year of one Washington hospitalist’s services, the median Medicare payment went from about $56,192 to about $30,224 in 2024 dollars. Follow the same 170 doctors who are in every year’s file and it’s the same story: about $66,891 then, about $31,265 now, in 2024 dollars.

CMS created the hospitalist specialty code on 1 April 2017, so the series starts at 2018.

The visits behind it

The median Washington hospitalist billed Medicare 31 admissions, 198 follow-up visits and 37 discharges in 2024. Critical care, prolonged services and advance care planning: zero of each at the median. Those are the codes that pay for the 2 a.m. work.

Matched-code coverage for the work RVUs: a median 95% of these hospitalists’ Medicare services.

626 of 644 hospitalists have at least one code row, and only they’re in these rows. CMS withholds a hospitalist’s row for any code they billed for 10 or fewer patients, so that code reads as zero for them here.

Facility visits only. 4% of these hospitalists’ services were billed at non-facility places (clinic, nursing facility) and are counted under the work RVUs but not in the visit rows.

Medicare’s price for an hour of your work

Medicare’s payment for the median Washington hospitalist’s services comes to about $106 an hour in 2024, on the minutes Medicare assumes each visit takes. You know what your group pays you an hour.

P25

$100/hour

Median

$106/hour

P75

$110/hour

Those minutes aren’t your shift hours: cross-cover, calls and unbilled time aren’t in them. The payment also covers practice expense and malpractice, on top of the work.

Matched codes cover a median 95% of these hospitalists’ Medicare services. The hourly leaves out 19 of the 626 because they had too little matched activity (under half their services).

Hourly rate

=equals 60 x sum(services x average Medicare payment) / sum(services x CMS minutes), matched codes only

Whose patients these are

Median age 76. Median risk score 2.40, where 1.00 is the average Medicare patient. 25% also on Medicaid at the median.

Median patient age

76

Dual-eligible share

25%

Median risk score

2.40

Most common chronic conditions

Median share of each hospitalist’s Medicare patients with the condition.

High cholesterol

75% or more

High blood pressure

75% or more

Rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis

52%

Chronic kidney disease

47%

Heart failure

47%

Ischemic heart disease

44%

Medicare Advantage in Washington

50% of Washington’s Medicare-eligible people were in a Medicare Advantage plan in September 2026 (789,692 of 1,590,289). None of their care is on this page.

Source: CMS Medicare Advantage State/County Penetration, September 2026, file State_County_Penetration_MA_2026_09.csv.

Who’s counted

CMS lists 644 hospitalists in Washington in 2024, by the address on their enrollment. The hospitalists enrolled as Internal Medicine aren’t here, and the address is where they bill from, not always where they work.

Take it with you

Common questions