How much does a CT scan cost?

Cost breakdown

Each table below comes from one source, named underneath it, with the date that source last revised the figures. Everything is a United States figure in USD.

What changes the price

Which body part, and whether contrast is used

This is the code, and the code is the price. At Boston Medical Center a head CT without contrast is $1,903.00, the same head with contrast is $2,497.00, and both ways in one visit is $2,794.00. An abdomen and pelvis with contrast is $3,745.00.

Whether the scan is a screening or a diagnosis

This is the largest difference on the page and it is not about the machine. Boston Medical Center publishes the low-dose lung cancer screening CT at $440.00 with a cash price of $198.00, against $2,215.00 for a diagnostic chest CT. Franklin Memorial Hospital publishes $178.00 against $1,430.20. The University of Chicago Medical Center publishes $2,682.00 for both.

Which hospital

A lumbar spine CT without contrast, CPT 72131, is published at $2,127.00 by Boston Medical Center, $1,430.20 by Franklin Memorial Hospital and $2,344.00 by The University of Chicago Medical Center. Three files, three attesters, one code.

Whether anyone is paying on your behalf

Boston Medical Center publishes a gross charge and a lower cash price on every CT row. Franklin Memorial Hospital and The University of Chicago Medical Center publish the same figure in both columns, so at those two paying cash buys no discount on the published price.

Whether the radiologist is in the number

Not at these hospitals. Franklin Memorial Hospital publishes professional rows under the same CT codes with the gross and cash fields blank, so an amount for the reading is not published rather than included. A figure for the scanner and the room is not the whole bill.

Whether you are looking at a hospital at all

A free-standing imaging centre is not a hospital and is under no rule requiring it to publish anything, so its price can be lower and is not checkable in the same way. Four of the first ten results on this search are pages about one city, which is usually that kind of provider.

How to pay less

Ask whether yours is the screening code

If you are being scanned because of smoking history rather than symptoms, ask whether it is billed as the low-dose lung cancer screening CT. Boston Medical Center publishes $198.00 cash for that code and $996.75 for a diagnostic chest CT, and Franklin Memorial Hospital publishes $178.00 against $1,430.20.

Ask for the cash price by name, and expect it to vary

Boston Medical Center publishes a cash price below its list price on every CT code. The other two hospitals here publish the list price in both columns, so the question is worth asking and the answer is worth checking against the file rather than assumed.

Ask whether contrast is planned

It changes the code and every hospital here prices the two differently. At Boston Medical Center a cervical spine CT is $2,769.00 without contrast and $4,834.00 with it.

Ask whether the radiologist bills separately

Every figure on this page is the facility or is unlabelled. Franklin Memorial Hospital publishes the professional rows with no amount at all, so a quote covering the scan may not cover the person reading it.

Compare the same code, not the same words

A CT of the abdomen and a CT of the abdomen and pelvis are different codes at different prices, and the second is dearer at all three hospitals here. Comparing 74177 against 74177 compares something.

What to read next

A PET scan is often taken with a CT in the same session and billed under a code of its own: what a PET scan costs is set out from the same three hospital files.

The other imaging on these same three files is priced on an axis of its own, screening against diagnostic: a mammogram is priced by which code you are having.

Questions

Where these figures come from

Every figure here is published by the hospital named beside it, in US dollars, in the United States, in its own machine-readable standard charges file under 45 CFR 180.50, and each file carries the attestation that the information encoded is true, accurate and complete as of the date in the file. The dates are the ones the files give themselves: 13 March 2026 for Boston Medical Center, attested by Christopher Abate, 9 September 2025 for Franklin Memorial Hospital, attested by Kenneth Olsen, and 1 April 2026 for The University of Chicago Medical Center, attested by Chris Allen. All three files were downloaded again on 25 September 2026 before any figure here was quoted, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services pages linked below were read on that date, the two on what a hospital must publish again on 9 October 2026. BEFORE ANY CODE WAS QUOTED, THE DISTINCT PUBLISHED PRICES FOR IT WERE COUNTED PER CODE AND PER BILLING CLASS, and all sixteen codes at all three hospitals carry exactly one price each, which is why all three can be quoted on this page when only one could be quoted for a colonoscopy. Boston Medical Center publishes no billing_class column, so its rows are labelled unlabelled rather than assumed to be facility charges; the other two are facility rows. None of these figures includes the radiologist who reads the scan. Nothing here is averaged, turned into a ratio or restated as a typical cost, and three hospitals are three hospitals rather than a national picture.

• Hospital Price Transparency

  Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · page last modified 16 September 2026

  The rule itself. CMS states that starting 1 January 2021 each hospital operating in the United States is required to publish pricing information online in two ways, as a comprehensive machine-readable file with all items and services and as a display of shoppable services in a consumer-friendly format, that CMS audits a sample of hospitals and investigates complaints, and that hospitals may face civil monetary penalties for noncompliance. Cited for the obligation and the enforcement, never for a price.

• Hospital Price Transparency: Consumers

  Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · page last modified 10 September 2024

  CMS's own description of what a hospital must make public: standard charges including the rates they negotiate with insurance companies and the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept directly from a patient if paid in cash. Cited for what the files are supposed to contain, which is how this page can say what a given file leaves out.

• Hospital Price Transparency: Hospitals

  Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · page last modified 10 March 2026

  The CMS page setting out what a hospital must publish: a single machine-readable file of gross charges, discounted cash prices, payer-specific negotiated charges and de-identified minimum and maximum negotiated charges for all items and services, and a display of at least 300 shoppable services a consumer can schedule in advance.

• Pricing and estimates: standard charges machine-readable file

  Boston Medical Center · Attested by Christopher Abate · file last_updated_on 13 March 2026

  The hospital's own machine-readable file, 043314093_BostonMedicalCenter_standardcharges.csv, schema version 3.0.0, carrying the attestation required by 45 CFR 180.50 that the information encoded is true, accurate and complete as of the date in the file. Unlike its inpatient rows, its imaging rows carry a gross charge, a discounted cash price and a rate for each named health plan, which is why this page can answer the question about paying without insurance from a published figure rather than an estimate.

• Price transparency: standard charges machine-readable file

  The University of Chicago Medical Center · Attested by Chris Allen · file last_updated_on 1 April 2026

  The hospital's own machine-readable file, 363488183_the-university-of-chicago-medical-center_standardcharges.json, schema version 3.0.0, carrying the attestation required by 45 CFR 180.50 that the information encoded is true, accurate and complete as of the date in the file. At MS-DRG level it publishes no gross charge and no discounted cash price, and instead names each health plan and the rate agreed with it, alongside a minimum and a maximum.

• Procedure Price Lookup for Outpatient Services

  Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · no date shown on the page; it gives national averages based on Medicare's 2026 payments and copayments

  Medicare's own national averages for an outpatient procedure, split by hospital outpatient department and ambulatory surgical center. For each it gives what Medicare pays, what the patient pays on average, and the total of the facility fee and the doctor's fee. Medicare rates are set by the government, so they work as a national benchmark; a private plan or a cash payer is charged its own price. Figures were read from the JSON the lookup page loads, saved in docs/research/cms-ppl-2026-10-12.json. Tests the tool does not cover, such as an EKG, an echocardiogram, a mammogram or an emergency visit, are not priced from it.

• Standard charges machine-readable file

  Franklin Memorial Hospital · Attested by Kenneth Olsen · file last_updated_on 9 September 2025

  The hospital's own machine-readable file, 010238552-1922791417_mainehealth_standardcharges.csv, schema version 3.0.0, published by MaineHealth for its Franklin Memorial Hospital location in Farmington, Maine, and carrying the same attestation under 45 CFR 180.50. It is the oldest of the three files quoted here and is said rather than smoothed. On every imaging row its discounted cash price is identical to its gross charge.

Sources on this page checked between 23 September and 12 October 2026. How we source prices.