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> The average cost of a WB-MRI scan for NSCLC patients was £317 Wow! $3000+ here in the US. Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?
State of the art MRI machine costs $3 million up front. Would take 20 scans a week, every week, for 10 years to break even on that investment at $300 per scan. Not counting physician & staff time or cost of capital.
With sufficient software and computational horsepower, a single whole-body MRI could replace most diagnostic imaging systems, I'd wager. Computer models regularly outperform radiologists in diagnosing several conditions involving structural abnormalities.
CT scans still have higher resolution than MRI for certain vascular and cardiac imaging studies. The down side is radiation exposure.
I have a hard time with reporting like this that doesn't quantify cost of biopsy on false-positives as well as cost of complications from examining false-positives.
Source: worked in clinical research for 2 years.
> The average cost of a WB-MRI scan for NSCLC patients was £317 Wow! $3000+ here in the US. Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?
A low field 0.2T machine might be $150k. A full bells+whistles 3T machine might be $3M.
I thought MRIs didn't have any radiation exposure as opposed to X-Rays and CT scans; unsure about this benefit of less exposure to radiation from 1 whole-body MRI vs multiple MRIs (should be the same IMO)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
State of the art MRI machine costs $3 million up front. Would take 20 scans a week, every week, for 10 years to break even on that investment at $300 per scan. Not counting physician & staff time or cost of capital.
Yes but you don't do 20 scans a week, you do that per day
>Ultimately, UVI increased appointment slots to 407 a week, efficiency was boosted to about 82%, and it is averaging 433 examinations per week.
That's for four machines.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
State of the art MRI machine costs $3 million up front. Would take 20 scans a week, every week, for 10 years to break even on that investment at $300 per scan. Not counting physician & staff time or cost of capital.
My insurer pays like $450. The hospitals seem to be doing ok, if anything there are way too many MRIs out there.
We're talking circa 2010, around the time of the obamacare debate in the US.
> The average cost of a WB-MRI scan for NSCLC patients was £317 Wow! $3000+ here in the US. Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?
If you prepay, costs around $400 to $500, but that is not involving private insurance. https://www.mdsave.com/ Not affiliated, just interesting to see prices of various diagnostics around the US.
Also, if you call independent MRI centers they will usually give you a much lower cash price (but then insurance won't reimburse).
Another point to consider is that hospital MRIs can cost 10x (ten times) more than independent MRI centers.
And while we're talking about MRIs, it's important to mention that the safer contrast agents are the macrocyclics. Avoid the linear agents if you are concerned about possible gadolinium deposits in your brain and other organs, and potential kidney damage.
> The average cost of a WB-MRI scan for NSCLC patients was £317 Wow! $3000+ here in the US. Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?
State of the art MRI machine costs $3 million up front. Would take 20 scans a week, every week, for 10 years to break even on that investment at $300 per scan. Not counting physician & staff time or cost of capital.
Who am I kidding? That actually requires a forward thinking government.