Diagnostics without Insurance

[Anonymous]

Any recommendations? Elderly parent (90+) needs CT scans done and has no insurance (visiting from abroad). Inova wants over $1500 for the two scans and even the nurse there recommended we look around at other places for cheaper options but didn't know any.

[Anonymous]

$1500 seems reasonable for ct scans. What you should probably do is complain of pain and just go through the er. If they don’t have insurance then they won’t have to pay. Don’t say you will pay either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$1500 seems reasonable for ct scans. What you should probably do is complain of pain and just go through the er. If they don’t have insurance then they won’t have to pay. Don’t say you will pay either.

Thanks for this suggestion, but I don't want to do this. Looking for a cheaper place (the nurse said it could only cost half as much at other places) and I'm OK paying that.

[Anonymous]

Congress passed a law that says all hospitals must publish lists of prices for different services. Get the name of the service or the billing code for the CT scan, then you can call around billing departments, or you can google Price Transparency List and download a spreadsheet with all the pricing data including the insurance price vs the lowest cash price. Perhaps you can use that to negotiate.

There are also stand alone MRI centers, not sure if they do CT scans, too, but it's a big business. Maybe if you call one of the MRI/stand alone imaging places they can direct you to cheaper CT scan.

[Anonymous]

Did you ask what the self-pay/cash price would be? I recently had an ultrasound and because of an admin error, they thought I was self-pay and quoted about $250. They billed insurance almost 1,000 for it. Also, I don’t go to Inova myself but from past experiences with other hospitals, it’s often cheaper to do stuff at stand alone practices rather than hospital-based. Might be worth looking into. I go to WRA for example.

[Anonymous]

Don’t go to a facility associated with a hospital. There are many stand alone imaging centers. Find one of those and it should be cheaper. Hospitals or even stand alone practices linked to a hospital up charge you.

[Anonymous]

1. Reston radiology consultants are generally cheaper and still do good work. Avoid Rayus Radiology, I see too many inaccurate scans from them.
2. There are times when doing a CT scan in the USA for a visiting parent is a good idea, but those cases are rare. Most of the time, it's not recommended because you cannot really follow through with treatment.