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Ten years ago I got an MRI when they were searching for kidney stone. I think the hospital charge was over $3000. I had one last year and the charge was less
by jtlienwis 7y ago
Ten years ago I got an MRI when they were searching for kidney stone. I think the hospital charge was over $3000. I had one last year and the charge was less than $500. You can point to MRI as one of the success stories for technology in health care.
- semerda 7y agoWhich country? Doesn’t sound like a US hospital.
- jessriedel 7y agoYou can get a world class MRI in the Bay Area for $550 from SimonMed Imaging.
- melling 7y agoNow we just need a good AI to read it. This would be especially useful in the developing world.
- kranner 7y agoRadiologists are cheap and plentiful in the developing world, compared to MRI machines.
- melling 7y agoNope, that is incorrect. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_radiology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_radiology https://www.forbes.com/sites/techonomy/2014/11/08/philippine-startup-takes-on-global-radiologist-shortage/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/techonomy/2014/11/08/philippine...
- kranner 7y agoFair rebuttal, but I don't know if medical cartels would allow AI to replace their limited supply of cardiologists so easily. It is quite cheap here in India already (got an orbital MRI last week for $105.10, including radiologist's fees; it can go as low as $40) but having it cheaper and more easily available would help a lot more people.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- thedance 7y agoYou can also get a worse MRI on obsolete equipment at UCSF for $18k. Ask me how I know!
- copperx 7y agoIs that cash price? Does that include the radiologist interpretation? And can you get one without a prescription?
- jessriedel 7y agoCash price. Based on how the thing was billed, I am 90% sure it included interpretation, but at this point I can't remember for sure. I don't know whether the prescription is mandatory, but I'm sure you can email/call them.
- exhilaration 7y agoThere's a ton of small clinics around the U.S. unaffiliated with hospitals that offer MRIs for far less. Just Google it. These places will usually even give you a price ahead of time, you'll never get that from a hospital.
- maxerickson 7y agoHospitals around here charge ~$2000 for a CT scan. The price isn't coupled to the cost of the machine.
- superkuh 7y agoA computed tomography scan is not MRI. It involves ionizing radiation (xrays). Not that an xray scan should cost $2000.
- maxerickson 7y agoYes, I'm aware of the difference. Typically, CT is more available and cheaper, which is why I thought it was a relevant point of comparison.
- nojvek 7y agoI paid $2000 for a wrist MRI scan in US and $200 for one in Nairobi. Basically anything in US will be 10X expensive because we have wonderful and very efficient healthcare for doing even the most basic things like CT, XRay, MRI etc. /s