Planning and Paying for a Diagnostic Procedure

Advanced diagnostic procedures such as MRIs and CT scans often play a critical role in modern medicine. They can help your doctor accurately identify a disease or disorder and also guide the course of treatment. Here are some suggestions to help with planning and paying for a relatively expensive, but essential diagnostic procedure:

The cost of the procedure varies significantly depending on the imaging center, the out-of-pocket costs of your insurance plan (co-pay or co-insurance), and your insurance provider network.

The Imaging Center: Getting your diagnostic procedure may cost up to 75% less at an independent imaging facility as compared to a hospital. This is partly because of the high operating costs in the hospital and a facility fee that hospitals are allowed to charge Medicare and many other insurance providers.

Your Insurance Network: You will pay less for a diagnostic procedure in an imaging center that accepts your insurance because your insurance provider will negotiate a discounted rate with a center in its network.

Your Insurance Plan: You need to check with your insurance provider if the diagnostic procedure is “subject to deductible.” This means you may have to pay for the procedure by yourself until you meet your annual deductible amount as specified in your insurance plan. After doing so, your insurance provider pays a percentage of the costs for your diagnostic procedure, which could be between 50-90%. If you have reached your “out-of-pocket maximum” as specified by your plan, your insurance may pay 100% of the cost for your diagnostic procedure until the end of the year or until you change your insurance plan.

Taking the time to understand the specifics of your insurance plan, choosing the right imaging facility and making sure it accepts your insurance will significantly lower the costs of your diagnostic procedure. Once these factors are taken care of, you can focus more on the important task of healing well and getting back to the things you enjoy.

Our mission at Houston MRI® & Diagnostic Imaging is to provide the patients and physicians with affordable medical diagnostic imaging in a warm and patient friendly environment. It is our goal to make the medical imaging procedure as pleasant as possible. Our promise to our communities is "hospital quality imaging without the hospital costs" with efficient service to both our patients and physicians.