CT scan cost on published US cash lists, against a hospital's charge

How much is a CT scan at these four centers?

Excel Medical Imaging publishes a general CT without contrast at $239, with and without contrast at $299, and a cardiac CTA with calcium score at $649. California Medical Imaging publishes $379 without contrast and $429 with, plus CT cardiac scoring at $120. San Diego Imaging publishes $300 without contrast, $360 with, an abdomen and pelvis without contrast at $400 and with at $460, a CT angiography at $360, a virtual colonoscopy at $600 and coronary calcium scoring at $165. Diagnostic Imaging Centers, pricing by CPT code with reading and technical fees included, publishes a head CT without contrast, CPT 70450, at $647.63 and an abdomen and pelvis without and with contrast, CPT 74178, at $1,043.63.

The hospital comparison, on one identical procedure code

The peer-reviewed read of 922 US hospitals published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in May 2021 found the median charge for a head CT, CPT 70450, was $1,761, with an interquartile range of $1,180 to $2,470. Diagnostic Imaging Centers publishes that same code at $647.63, reading fee included. This is the cleanest comparison available anywhere in imaging because it is code against code rather than description against description: the hospital median is more than two and a half times the outpatient published price for a scan that bills as the same thing.

Contrast and region, the two things that move a CT price

Contrast adds $50 to $60 where it is priced separately: $239 to $299 at Excel Medical Imaging, $379 to $429 at California Medical Imaging, $300 to $360 at San Diego Imaging. Region matters more at the itemised lists, where San Diego Imaging's abdomen and pelvis at $400 sits above its general $300, and Diagnostic Imaging Centers' abdomen and pelvis with and without contrast at $1,043.63 is more than half again its head CT at $647.63. As with MRI, the cheapest center for a plain scan may not be the cheapest for the exam you need.

Cardiac CT is a separate market inside this one

Three of these lists price cardiac work and none of them agrees with another on what the words mean. California Medical Imaging publishes CT cardiac scoring at $120. San Diego Imaging publishes coronary calcium scoring CT at $165 and a coronary CT angiography at $700, which are different exams four times apart. Excel Medical Imaging bundles them, publishing a cardiac CTA with calcium score at $649. A calcium score alone is a screening number; a CTA is a contrast study of the arteries. Price the one your referral names.

Lung screening is priced as its own product

San Diego Imaging publishes a low-dose CT lung screening at $200 and notes that it requires age and history criteria. That is roughly two thirds of its general CT price and a third of its abdomen and pelvis with contrast, which reflects a short, single-purpose protocol rather than a discount. Whether you meet the criteria is a clinical question this record does not answer, but if a clinician has raised it, the published price for it is a two-figure sum below what most people expect a CT to cost.

What this page is not

A price record, not a clinical one. Whether a CT is the right study, whether contrast is warranted and what any scan shows belong to the clinician who ordered it, and this site states no clinical claim on any page. Every figure here is quoted from the center's own published list or from the named study, read on 10 September 2026.

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