How We Get These Prices

No secret shoppers, no estimates. Every number on this site traces to a published source, shown on the page next to the price.

Hospitals

Since 2021, federal law (45 CFR Part 180) has required every US hospital to publish a machine-readable file of its prices, including a discounted cash price — the price for patients paying without insurance. We download those files and pull out the cash price for each scan. The file's own date is shown with the price.

One thing you'll notice: at many hospitals the cash price is a flat percentage of the list ("chargemaster") price — for example 75% of list at Intermountain hospitals and 70% at University of Utah. We show the list price and the percentage so you can see exactly how the number is built. The independent centers below often charge far less, because their cash prices are set to win cash customers, not discounted from a list.

When one scan has two cash prices

Some hospital systems publish a single price file covering several locations under one license — a main hospital plus its freestanding emergency centers, for example — and the same scan appears in it at two different cash prices, with nothing in the file saying which price belongs to which location. When that happens, we show the lower of the two published prices and mark the row with a note saying so. Either price is the hospital's own published number; confirm which one applies when you book.

Independent imaging centers

A few centers publish flat self-pay prices on their own websites. We list those exactly as published and label them as center prices.

Marketplaces

Some hospital scans can be booked in advance through marketplaces like MDsave. Those rows are labeled "Marketplace (MDsave)" and show the bookable price we read on the marketplace's public pages.

Freshness

Hospital files must be updated at least once a year; centers can change prices at any time. Every price shows when the source was published and when we collected it. Always call the facility and confirm the cash price before you book — and if a price here is wrong, tell us and we'll fix it.

This site publishes prices only. It is not medical advice and does not recommend any facility.