What care costs
Ask the internet what a procedure costs and you get a confident average with no source behind it. These pages do something more useful: they explain what actually moves the price for each procedure, and they show you how to read the price your own hospital has already published — a file federal rules require it to post, and which almost nobody is told how to use.
On numbers: this site does not publish a price it cannot source. Metro-level cash prices, aggregated from hospitals' own machine-readable files, are in progress; until they are verified, these pages teach the lookup rather than quoting an average. Where a figure does appear, it carries its source, its date and its status.
Urgent care visit
An urgent care visit is billed as an office visit at one of five complexity levels, plus anything done during it — a strep test, an X-ray, stitches.
MRI
MRI prices vary more than almost any procedure in American healthcare — the same scan can differ several-fold between a hospital and an independent imaging center a few miles apart.
CT scan
A CT scan is typically cheaper than an MRI and faster to obtain, but the same hospital-versus-outpatient price gap applies.
Emergency room visit
An emergency room bill is mostly the facility fee — the charge for the department being open, staffed and equipped — rather than the treatment you received.
Colonoscopy
A colonoscopy is several bills, not one: the facility, the gastroenterologist, the anesthesia, and — if anything is removed — the pathology.
Root canal
A root canal is priced by which tooth it is — a front tooth has one canal, a molar can have four — and the crown that almost always follows is a separate bill.
Teeth cleaning
A routine cleaning, an exam and X-rays are three separate codes, and most advertised "new patient" prices bundle them.
Tooth extraction
A simple extraction of a visible tooth and a surgical extraction of an impacted one are different procedures at very different prices.
X-ray
An X-ray is among the least expensive imaging studies, but the same body part costs very differently in an emergency department than at an outpatient imaging centre.
Ultrasound
Ultrasound uses no radiation and no contrast, which keeps it cheaper than CT or MRI, but the code depends on the body region and on whether the study is complete or limited.
Blood test
Individual blood tests are inexpensive; what makes a lab bill large is how many of them were ordered.
Ambulance ride
An ambulance bill has two parts: a base rate for the response and level of care, plus a per-mile charge for the transport.
Eye exam
A routine vision exam to get a glasses prescription and a medical eye exam for a symptom are different services billed under different systems.
Doctor visit
A primary care visit is billed at one of five complexity levels, and the level is chosen from what was documented rather than from how long you were there.
Therapy session
A therapy session is billed by length — 30, 45 or 60 minutes are separate codes — and the intake appointment costs more than the sessions that follow.
Mammogram
A screening mammogram for someone with no symptoms and a diagnostic mammogram investigating a finding are different codes at different prices.
Physical therapy
Physical therapy is billed per 15-minute unit, not per session, and one appointment usually generates several units across several codes.
Sleep study
An in-lab overnight sleep study and a home sleep apnea test differ enormously in price, and for suspected obstructive sleep apnea the home test is often clinically appropriate.
Dental implant
A dental implant is three separate procedures billed separately — the post placed in the jaw, the abutment connecting it, and the crown on top — plus anything needed to prepare the site.
Braces
Orthodontics is quoted as one number for a whole course of treatment lasting a year or more, and that number is almost always payable in monthly instalments interest-free.
Annual physical
A preventive physical and a problem-focused office visit are different code families, and mentioning a new symptom during a physical can generate a second charge for the same appointment.
Vasectomy
A vasectomy is usually a single outpatient appointment under local anaesthetic, and the price depends heavily on setting — a urology office costs far less than a surgery centre.
IUD
An IUD bill has two parts: the device itself and the insertion visit.
Dental crown
A crown is priced by material — porcelain, ceramic, metal, or porcelain fused to metal are separate codes — and the price usually includes the lab work and the fitting visit.
Stitches
Stitches are billed by wound length and complexity, not by the number of sutures, and where you go changes the total far more than the repair itself does.
EKG
An EKG is one of the cheapest tests in medicine, but it is billed in two parts — performing the tracing and interpreting it — and where it is done matters far more than the test.
Endoscopy
An upper endoscopy is billed by several entities at once — facility, gastroenterologist, anaesthesia and, if a biopsy is taken, pathology.
Allergy testing
Allergy testing is billed per allergen tested, not per appointment, so the number of panels ordered decides the bill almost entirely.
The bill has already arrived
Then price research is the second job, not the first. Start by requesting the itemized bill, then check it for errors. The negotiation letters each cite the federal rule they rest on.
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