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

to pay back the cost of the machine.

when a hospital buys an MRI machine, that is easily over 1 million dollars in cost. for both the machine itself and building out the special mri room.

Meaning if they only charged people 100 dollars to use it, it would take them 10,000 mri’s to payback just the cost of the machine alone. That is YEARS worth of MRIs. unsustainable.

This is why rural hospitals are struggling. They can’t buy good equipment because they don’t get enough use to justify the cost. But that means people choose to travel further to hospitals with newer/better equipment when they can.