My wife has been an OR Scrub and Circulating Nurse for 10+ years at hospitals in Ohio, California, and Texas. The amount of paperwork required for all cases has exploded over those years, and some of the largest areas of additional tracking are in materials and time. She must account for every instrument, drug, syringe, etc. down to the cotton swabs used to absorb sweat/blood/whateverbodilyfluid within the hospital's system. She must track the time it takes from the patient entering the OR to the patient being released to Recovery, and must explain why anything is outside what is expected in a "normal" case. Yes, they know what is normally expected in time and materials. Yes, they know the costs associated with every procedure that is regularly performed at that hospital. Yes, they could absolutely create a standardized price list and make it public. The data exists and the statistics are known. Yes cases vary, but to one of our host's points, THEY KNOW THE STATISTICS! Setting pricing to make a nice, tidy profit without screwing patients over can be done with the current systems and available information.