Huge differences highlighted in US healthcare prices

March 01 01:00 2016 by ushadmin

When medical tourism providers and destinations compare their treatment medical prices with the USA, they fail to understand the huge price differences that exist within and between states.

Castlight Health’s second annual U.S. Costliest Cities Analysis looks at what employers and employees actually pay for common healthcare procedures in the 30 most populous U.S. cities.

Consumers across the country continue to pay wildly different prices for standard medical services, ranging from primary care check-ups, to radiology tests and common blood work, not just from state-to-state but also within the same city.

Nationwide for a mammogram, a woman can pay anywhere from $43 to $1,898 for the test, a 44x difference. In Dallas a woman can pay anywhere from $50 to $1,045. In New York City, the price can vary between $130 to $1,898.In Los Angeles, a simple mammogram can cost anywhere from $86 to $954.

Kristin Torres Mowat at Castlight Health explains, “The data demonstrates huge medical price variances in the U.S. healthcare system.”

In New York City, there was an astounding 76x difference between what consumers paid to have the same cholesterol test, ranging from $14 to $1,070.

In Washington the price for a head/brain CT scan ranged from $78 to $1,673.

In New York City, the price of a lower-back MRI ranged from $334 to $3939

In Chicago, the price to get a routine exam was the widest of any city, ranging from $50 to $423. The survey found that the routine examination was most expensive in Minneapolis and San Francisco, and cheapest in Miami and Orlando…