The Smart Rate field is a curated version of negotiated rates that Gigasheet generates as part of our processed and cleaned price transparency data. It is designed to make benchmarking and comparisons across providers and payers faster and more meaningful, without losing access to the underlying raw data.

Why Smart Rate Exists

Transparency in Coverage Machine-Readable Files contain a massive range of contracted prices, including values that are not practical for analysis. Outlier rates, unusual billing arrangements, and codes outside standard fee schedules can make it difficult to quickly identify “typical” contracted prices.

Smart Rate helps solve this problem by applying consistent filters so analysts can focus on the most relevant rates while still retaining the original data for reference.

What Smart Rate Does

Smart Rate is a binary field (true/false) designed to represent a cleaner, more comparable price field. Specifically, it:

• Removes extreme Medicare reimbursement outliers

• Focuses on codes tied to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS). Note: codes not included on the PFS are generally excluded from the Smart Rate field.

• Provides a consistent reference point: By filtering out noise and limiting to commonly used negotiated values, Smart Rate allows for quicker apples-to-apples comparisons across providers and payers.

What Smart Rate Does Not Do

• It does not alter or overwrite the underlying rate information. All raw data remains available in your dataset for audit, exploration, and deeper analysis.

• It is not a replacement for clinical or contractual review. Analysts may still want to reference multiple fields depending on the use case.

When to Use Smart Rate

Use Smart Rate when you want to:

• Benchmark providers against peers in a clean, comparable way.

• Create aggregate summaries without being skewed by extreme outliers.

• Zero in quickly on the most relevant contracted rates for common services.

If you need to explore the full spectrum of negotiated values (including those that fall outside Smart Rate’s criteria) the original fields remain available in your dataset.