Same Brain MRI, Thirty-Six Times the Price

Same scan. Same CPT code. A brain MRI without contrast.

At Henry County Memorial in New Castle, Indiana, the posted cash price is four hundred six dollars. At Sky Ridge Medical Center in Lone Tree, Colorado, it is fourteen thousand six hundred eighty-one. Thirty-six times more. MedicalPriceCheck pulled those figures from two hundred seventy-four hospitals across forty-six states. Five years after the federal posting rule, the gap did not shrink. It just got public.

Source: medicalpricecheck.com/research/mri-cost/

I am not shocked. A posted price without a shopper is still a sticker.

The median cash brain MRI sits around twenty-two hundred. Freestanding imaging shops run lower still. The transparency rule showed the problem. It did not fix it. The winners are the patients who know to ask for the cash price before they walk through the door.

I am not anti-insurance. Keep a policy for the wreck. I am anti a ZIP code that multiplies the invoice by thirty-six. We take care of patients for a flat monthly fee. No claim. No network. The number on the door is the number you pay.

Thirty-six is a price. It just depends which door you open.