eli5: if an operational cost of an MRI scan is $50-75, why does it cost up to $3500 to a patient?

Question

Explain like I’m European.

In: Other

Answer 1

Hospital’s chargemaster billing is approximately 7x-10x their actual costs, while insurance companies demand discounts of about 65-85% off the chargemaster price. If you don’t have insurance and offer to settle up with cash, hospitals will “magnanimously” offer 50% discounts, which still charges insurance-less patients about double what insurance companies negotiate.

The cost of an MRI scan is not just in completing the scan itself, but also the technicians time in preparing the patient and operating the machine, but perhaps most significantly, the radiologist’s interpretation of the results.

Perhaps a dirty little secret is that many doctors will simply read the radiologist’s interpretation, without even looking at the pretty pictures. Get your doctor to show you the pictures and point out the features that support the interpretation.