Patients in New York spend more time at the end of their lives in the hospital than those in other areas of the country, and they receive some of the most aggressive medical care, according to new data published by Consumer Reports.

In a new online database, the magazine breaks down the average price of care received at individual hospitals, and it ranks hospitals on how aggressively they treat patients with nine chronic conditions, including heart failure, lung disease, and cancer. The magazine defines “aggressive” care as including frequent diagnostic tests and doctor visits; reliance on specialists, and prolonged hospital stays, among other things.

In the last two years of life, patients 65 and older in Manhattan saw a doctor 88 times, compared with 45 times in Seattle. In Manhattan, the average cost for care during that time was $81,143, compared with $43,218 in Seattle.

The magazine emphasized that the comparison does not reflect the quality of hospital care, although aggressive care often extends the time spent in the hospital and increases the cost for patients.

Among New York City hospitals, NYU Langone Medical Center topped the list both in cost and in its level of aggressiveness. It scored 100% on the magazine’s scale of aggressiveness, and the average out of pocket cost to patients for hospital stays during the last two years of life was $5,544. Two of the city’s public hospitals scored the lowest in both categories. Bellevue Hospital was the least expensive hospital, at $1,380 for hospital stays. Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn was the least aggressive, scoring 44% on that scale.

The president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, Kenneth Raske, questioned the value of the data to consumers, saying the numbers do not reflect 97% of patients who do not die in hospitals. “The real data you want would be how many resources were deployed in saving people,” Mr. Raske said.