So at my little girls last checkup, she is 15 months old, the pediatrician made a comment about something that felt different on her for lack of a better word ribs. Said we should call get a referral from them for a chest x-ray and have the x-ray done and check it out, but they weren't worried just thought we should look into it. Said we needed a referral to get an x-ray, so they did the referral and gave us the contact info of a few places to call around for prices and get the x-ray done and results would be sent to our pediatrician.

Im a little gun shy on pricing. Last year my wife needed an MRI and we paid more for the copay for an MRI with insurance than the cash price for an MRI..... So we made our first call for a chest x-ray for my daughter and its 3x what we paid for an MRI last year. They are saying 1500 for a chest x-ray. Got a few other places to call first. Oh and they would not tell us what a cash price was. Think we will probably call and say we don't have insurance and see if we can find out that way lol. My wife's MRI last year was $400 and change copay with insurance only to find out later that the cash price was $300 and change for an MRI, seems like an MRI is a more costly procedure than an x-ray.

Modern medicine may be good, but modern healthcare sucks the big one.

Any Dr's on here know what an x-ray should run?

This is what i hate.
You know what you need but you can’t get It without a referral. And you can’t get a damn referral without an exam fee. It’s such a waste of time and money.

I had to wait two weeks to get in to have a spot looked at for removal. It took 5 minutes and over $100 for a doctor to literally look at the spot and write a referral. Then 3 weeks to get in to the skin place.

It was the same 40 years ago. I had an inguinal hernia. It was sticking out. I went to a surgeon to get a simple repair. I called Aetna. They said I needed a referral. I laughed and replied that the implications were obvious. Aetna went ahead and approved it.

I don't have to wait that long at the VA clinic for appointments.

My wife and I have medicare and a supplement and it is actually pretty good. She had gamma knife surgery a couple of years ago. With MRI's and surgery and such the bill was over a hundred grand. We paid nothing out of pocket.

Do not do it at a hospital.

Use Touchstone Imaging (or another free standing radiology place). There will not be a facility fee.

Also, if you pay self pay (cash) prices, the amount will not go towards your deductible. Some people care about that kind of thing. Our deductible is $12,700, so we almost always go cash price.

This is a great place and people.

To further support my distrust of modern heathcare… my wife texted me a bit ago that she heard back from 2 of the other places she had called. One was $40 and the other $37. Not sure what the second one is, but one of the two is another hospital.

I don't mean to sound cheap(even though I am) I would pay anything I have for my childrens health and safety, but im not going to be taken advantage of for it.

Very true. The further you can get away from a hospital the better you will be financially.

Xrays for children cost more than adults for what it is worth. An MRI should be more expensive than an xray.

I have helped file hundreds if not thousands of claims for my clients. Sometimes thinking outside the box which you clearly have will save you money.

Totally agree with you. My wife has ocular melanoma (eye cancer), thankfully it was caught early and according to biopsy is the slowest growing, slowest spreading type and they treated it quickly and has excellent results. Because it's cancer, they have her on a 5 yr watch and her oncologist wants to do a PET scan annually. This is like a CT scan/MRI on steroids and costs about $4-5K per scan. The scan will show if the cancer has spread to anywhere in her body. Insurance covered some of it last year and the year before, but it not wanting to cover it this year. This scan is literally insurance for catching cancer early in the rest of her body, which could/would cost the insurance company many hundreds of thousands if not over a million dollars and they don't want to cover the scan. Very frustrating.

I pray that everything is fine with your daughter and you find a good solution quickly for the X-ray.

You should be able to get credit towards your deductible if you get a receipt with the procedure code on it. It will require filing the claim paperwork yourself which will require the procedure code. I know for sure that's the way it works in MN, if the insurance co doesn't want to count it, contact the Texas Dept of Insurance.

Make sure those quotes you're getting are all for the same (right) type of x-ray.

I had to get a heart ultrasound last year for an LVT (plain old ultrasound, not some fancy 3D or 4D thing like they do for babies). They wanted almost two times more for the ultrasound than the MRI's we had a few weeks before. I thought to myself, this is crazy; can I just get an MRI instead. You would think the MRI would give you a better picture than the ancient ultrasound technology they were using.

Thanks for the prayer.

At this point we don't know anything at all. Our pediatrician mentioned it on her last checkup and said we could have it checked on if we wanted to, that it wouldn't be a bad idea but it wasn't indicative of something bad. My MIL had noticed it before also and I guess just never said anything.

Healthcare has gotten ridiculously expensive

That sounds much better!

Keep in mind there will probably be a radiologist fee as well for who ever reads the X-rays. I have been hit with that surprise before but its usually anywhere from $50-$200. I have seen some roll the cost into the cost of the X-rays up front though.

Modern healthcare hates you, too!

$1,500 for a chest x- ray?? WTF!! Should be about $200 to $300 total. Last one I had for pneumonia was that a few years ago at the hospital but we have good health insurance. Who is your carrier? I am BCBS and was United before that. We just went to a specialist for broken bone and xray was $200 total so I only paid a % of that so $40 put of pocket in a major city though.

Welcome to European style healthcare. America got what it asked for.

Shop around, but make sure it gets done and reviewed by a good radiologist ASAP. My 5 year old was diagnosed with cancer in 2017 and in the preliminary "lets just double check" tests I was annoyed with the bills, but over a million dollars in bills and a year later she is cancer free ! I gladly pay my maximum out of pocket every year now and will for a very long time.

Prayers for your daughter and that this is nothing to worry about, but peace of mind is worth whatever they charge.

Tell them you do not have insurance.
My son needed a chest X-Ray and the doc referred to an imaging center. Wife got there and called me to let me know they wanted $650 WITH insurance. I told her to ask them how much if we didn't have insurance and it was $75....

If you are in N. Texas shoot me a message. My buddy works at an outpatient imaging center on his off days and I have another friend who is a Radiologist. Between the two I will see if I can score you a decent price.

I appreciate the fact I have to keep re-upping my referral even though I have a life-long affliction and will have to see the specialist until I die. I'm never NOT going to need the specialist, you'd think they could issue at least a 5-year referral.

Morons.

Medicare will take care of you after you retire.

MEDI-SHARE. Leave that sorry coverage behind and don't look back. This coverage is much better, always pays usuall and customary and you go to whatever provider you want. Over 400,000 members.

Not if the Dems get their way, Medicare For All will destroy it forever Bill......

Most of what posted here is correct. Can be very frustrating and crazy.

However, great problems to have all things considering. Better to face this, than to have a sick child and not be able to do anything to help. To have no options.