MRI cost without insurance: four published cash lists, from $400

How much is an MRI without insurance? Four lists, low to high

Advantage Diagnostics publishes an MRI at $400 with professional interpretation included and adds $100 to any study ordered with contrast, with brain studies including orbits, IAC, MRA or pituitary at $800. Independent Physicians Medical Center publishes $450 without contrast and $550 with and without. San Diego Imaging publishes an MRI or MRA without contrast at $480 and without and with contrast at $560, adding $240 for each additional MRI in the same visit. Diagnostic Imaging Centers, which prices by CPT code and states that all prices include both the reading and technical fees, publishes an MRI of the lumbar spine without contrast, CPT 72148, at $1,036.20 and an MRI of the brain without and with contrast, CPT 70553, at $1,428.90.

The hospital is a different price, not a different scan

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 identical code at $647.63 with the reading included. The procedure code is the same string of digits in both places. What differs is the setting and what it is entitled to charge for, which is why a self-paying patient who can choose an outpatient center is choosing between prices rather than between scans.

The average cost of MRI without insurance is the wrong number

An average MRI price is close to meaningless because the underlying distribution is not one population. The Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker measured the average outpatient lower-back MRI at $861 in 2018, with Houston at $1,106 and Las Vegas at $404 for the same exam. Set that against $400 at Advantage Diagnostics and $1,036.20 at Diagnostic Imaging Centers for a lumbar study, and the average sits between markets and between settings that have little to do with one another. Anyone budgeting from it is budgeting from a number that describes no actual appointment.

What an MRI scan cost without insurance should itemise

Three lines decide whether a self-pay figure is the whole bill. Whether the radiologist's read is included: Advantage Diagnostics and Diagnostic Imaging Centers both state that it is. Whether contrast is extra: Advantage Diagnostics adds a flat $100 to any study ordered with contrast, and San Diego Imaging prices with-and-without $80 above without. Whether a second region counts as a second scan: San Diego Imaging adds $240 for each additional MRI in the same visit, which is the line most people never think to ask about.

The rule that made any of this readable

45 CFR 180.20 defines the discounted cash price as the charge that applies to an individual who pays cash, or cash equivalent, for a hospital item or service, and defines a shoppable service as one that can be scheduled by a healthcare consumer in advance. Hospitals have had to publish those charges since 1 January 2021. Independent centers publish because it wins them the self-pay patient. Between the two, an uninsured patient in 2026 can read a price before booking, which was not true a few years ago.

What this page is not

This is a price record and states no clinical claim. It does not say whether you need the scan, which scan you need or what your result means; those are for the clinician who ordered it. Every figure here is quoted from the center's own published list or from the named study, read on 10 September 2026.

Questions people ask about mri cost without insurance

Related answers

• mri cost
• self pay mri
• mri scan brain cost
• ct scan cost
• pet scan price
• hospital beds
• bluetooth hearing aids cost
• dental bonding