Patients at these institutions typically get billed for the patient portal interactions if they take at least five minutes of a provider’s time and require medical expertise. The charges, which can range from $7 to $98 and are often covered by insurance, are intended to get a handle on the explosion in MyChart messages physicians have been receiving.
Still, health systems remain divided on the policy. Here are the decisions from U.S. News & World Report‘s top 22 hospitals for 2023-24 on whether to bill for the messages, according to previous Becker’s reporting, their websites, and spokespeople from the organizations:
Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis): Yes
Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston): No
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles): No
Cleveland Clinic: Yes
Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian (Philadelphia): No
Houston Methodist Hospital: Yes
Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore): Yes
Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston): No
Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.): Yes
Mount Sinai Hospital (New York City): No
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell (New York City): No
North Shore University Hospital at Northwell Health (Manhasset, N.Y.): No
Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago): Yes
NYU Langone Hospitals (New York City): No
Rush University Medical Center (Chicago): No
Stanford Health Care-Stanford (Calif.) Hospital: No
UC San Diego Health-LaJolla and Hillcrest Hospitals: Yes
UCLA Medical Center (Los Angeles): No
UCSF Health-UCSF Medical Center (San Francisco): Yes
University of Michigan Health-Ann Arbor: Yes
UT Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas): Unknown (did not respond to Becker’s)
Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, Tenn.): Yes
