Price of MRI's

[chrissmom]

Christopher's MRI's run about $2,000 but he gets alot of pictures for that money. I asked for a CD with pictures and there are alot on there.  He gets both contrast and without contrast. It seems like alot of levels and slices.  The CT scans run about $1400 each.  During his surgeries, he had constant MRI monitoring, I noticed that ran $22,000 !  Yikes !  Fortunately, he had excellent health insurance from HealthAmerica. Now he has BC/BS and it's not so good.

[Sue]

My friend whose MRI was $7100 has great health insurance and she is responsible for 10%.  My husband's health insurance has a high deductible which I'm very sorry about but I'm so glad we have something.  We have a $2500 deductible.  Ugh.  But, our maximum out of pocket is $3500 and everything over that is picked up by the insurance company. That's in a years time, just a FYI for our Canadian neighbors.  But, see...if I went to Canada, I don't have to wait like the residents do. That's 'cause I'm paying, I guess.  That place in Vancouver BC gets me in in about a week. That is if I wanted to do that. The question would be if that would go through my insurance so I'd get credit towards our deductible.  I'm guessing not.  My aunt's MRI will probably not cost her much as she has Medicare and her other insurance to pay for the balance. At least, I don't think she'd have to pay anything.  We'll see. 

Sue in Vancouver USA

[Ingy M]

In Canada, each province is different from the other as far as health care is concerned. But Canada is desperately trying to maintain the belief that EVERYONE deserves the same level of health care, regardless of how much money they have or insurance. Ontario is trying to stay away from a two tiered system because of that belief. Is this good or bad? The government claims it is because of the cost of health care. Who knows...

ingy

[pearchica]

Hey Sue and Gang: my MRI's are so far 1225 in Sacramento- haven't received the bill from Stanford yet.  And yeah, I have a yearly $4,000 deductible. My husband and I opted out of our family farm insurance, went to our own policies back in Oct 06- only for me to be diagnosed in Dec06! So much for going cheap. I did dispute the Sac MRI with Blue Shield of California and to their credit they are going to pay for it. However, I did save them about 60K and change by opting for CK rather than surgery so I think we are even!  Annie

PS would much rather travel then have to spend money on MRI... oh well

[matti]

Hey Annie - I didn't realize you lived in Sacramento, I am only an hour or so away from you (San Ramon).  I had my surgery at Stanford in 1998.

Cheryl

[RED in Palacios]

If memory serves, the MRI series I had ran $5000.  Insurance picked up most of it but my part was $615.  Cost for this procedure may be inflated as this is a fairly new variety here in mid coastal Texas.  This particular machine is an "open concept" also called a "Standi Up MRI"  In my case I was actually lowered into the unit but there was very little noise and no tunnel to endure.  Whatever the cost, knowing what is actually going on with my AN is worth the price in peace of mind.  Yes it is expensive but I can have several years worth of scans for much less than one "exploratory procedure" with all the "goodies" those entail.  For my part, anything I can use to avoid an open skull type surgical procedure is money well spent. 

Richard

[Martin]

In the Netherlands, my insurance paid for the first MRI (when my AN was found) less then 200 Euro: included the visit to the Ent, but with no contrast. I had to wait two weeks for the MRI after my first visit to the Ent.
After that I had GK –three months ago- for about 8000 Euro (all included: GK, hospital charges neurosurgeon cost  and MRI with contrast).
All has been paid by the medical insurance.

Martin

[OTO]

At my local hospital (Aiea, Hawaii), the MRI with and without contrast cost $1,634.00.  After provider adjustments and insurance payments, I paid $258.19 out of pocket in Mar 2007.