Need an MRI? It pays to shop around. Big time.
The median price difference for MRIs in hospitals versus freestanding imaging centers in the United States often varies by thousands of dollars, underscoring the need for consumers to shop around given high out of pocket health costs, data out Tuesday show.
This price spread was widest in Alaska, where the median price for hospital MRIs was $3,200 more than in imaging centers. Michigan wasn’t much better with a price difference of about $2,500.
Health care data company Amino, which released the pricing analysis, uses claims data from Medicare and up to 80% of insurers. It includes billions of health insurance claims that are 48 hours old and constantly updated.
“Most of us think there’s a big difference between $750 and $3,000 for an MRI,” says Leah Binder, CEO of the Leapfrog Group, which rates hospitals. “It’s not some minor detail on an insurance plans’s balance sheet.”
In the United States, 35 million MRIs are performed each year and $100 billion is spent on these services, about as much as is spent on cancer drugs, said David Vivero, Amino’s founder and CEO.
“Overall health care is taking over the American wallet,” said Vivero. “Our approach is to save every American money.”
by Jayne O’Donnell and Shari Rudavsky
