Jeanne Pinder
(Updated 2022) How much does a joint MRI of an upper extremity cost, $350 or $1,000? He told the billing department the price was too high, and they dropped it. Who knew? When you tell the woman in billing department the price is too high, maybe she’ll drop it for you. The community member shared […]
Jeanne Pinder
A community member writes: “Just wanted to give you some information for this area: Zip code 36532, which is the Alabama eastern shore of Mobile Bay. “Two weeks ago I had an MRI of both hip joints without contrast. The local monopoly healthcare system (Infirmary) charges $2,400. for that test with cash payers being given […]
Jeanne Pinder
A community member shared with us the bare bones of a story: Two MRI bills at an imaging center in Scarborough, Maine, resulted in a bill for $2,380. “Doctor advised ‘spinal MRI’, no indication given that procedure would be expensive or be billed separately for thoracic and lumbar regions of the spine,” wrote the community […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Dr. Gajendra Singh walked out of his local hospital’s outpatient department last year, having been told an ultrasound for some vague abdominal pain he was feeling would cost $1,200 or so, and decided enough was enough,” Dylan Scott writes over at Vox.com. “If he was balking at the price of a routine medical scan, what […]
Jeanne Pinder
A friend asked the other day if it was possible to shop for an MRI. I sent him our “10 questions to ask” post, and after a little while, he emailed me to say he had a shoulder MRI for $600 at Union Square Imaging in New York. I asked him if he could tell […]
Jeanne Pinder
She got a foot MRI, for cash, at $450, and considers it a bargain. The story involves a young woman I know who needed an MRI to diagnose a complicated foot injury. Two X-rays about five days apart showed that it wasn’t broken, but it was swollen and painful (the foot in question had been […]
Jeanne Pinder
Summary: More and more cash imaging places are coming across our radar. This one, Premier Medical Imaging, is based in Scottsdale, Ariz., and serves patients in the Midwest and also Alabama — with a $34 cash X-Ray and a $499 MRI without contrast, as well as a $359 CT scan without contrast. We don’t know […]
Jeanne Pinder
Summary: Early results from our California crowdsourcing project on MRI prices are in. Payments range from $255 to $2,925.15. MRI pricing is a complete mystery: What should you pay? Can you ask for a discount? We’ve been looking at health-care prices for three years, so if we say it’s a mystery, we can imagine what […]
Jeanne Pinder
How much does childbirth cost? How much does an MRI cost? Gall bladder surgery, arthroscopy? Today we’re rolling out our database of cash or self-pay hospital prices. While we’ve been collecting pricing for modest “shoppable” procedures since our founding in early 2011, we are now launching a separate database of cash or self-pay prices for more expensive, […]
Jeanne Pinder
SUMMARY: Dear Insurance Co., Patient X called and he wants to know why you’re paying $425 and $2,530 for the same thing. Keep reading for a mini-mystery story, or… CLICK HERE FOR PRICES Jeanne PinderJeanne Pinder is the founder and CEO of ClearHealthCosts. She worked at The New York Times for almost 25 […]
