If you want to know what a medical procedure or hospital service costs before you schedule it, here are the tools to use
The price of the same medical procedure can differ by thousands of dollars depending on which hospital or facility provides it — even within the same city. An MRI at one imaging center might cost $400; the same scan at a different facility a few miles away might cost $2,000. A patient who calls ahead and compares prices before scheduling care can sometimes find a significantly lower-cost option for the exact same service. The tools on this page make that comparison possible.
This page covers free tools that let patients look up estimated or published prices for specific medical procedures and services by location. It also explains a federal rule that now requires hospitals to publish their prices directly — and how to find and use that data. For help once you have already received a bill, see the guide to negotiating medical bills or the guide to medical billing advocates.
- DISCLAIMER: Medical procedure costs vary by provider, location, insurance plan, and individual circumstances. The tools on this page provide estimates and published rates, not a guarantee of what you will be charged. Your actual out-of-pocket cost depends on your specific coverage and the facility's billing policies.
FAIR Health Consumer
FAIR Health Consumer (website: https://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/) is a free, independent nonprofit tool that estimates what medical and dental procedures typically cost in a given area. It draws on one of the largest claims databases in the country — billions of records submitted by insurers — and shows both what providers typically charge and what insurance typically pays for a given procedure in a given ZIP code.
A patient who knows they need a specific procedure can enter a CPT code or a description of the service, enter their ZIP code, and get a cost estimate broken into the typical charged amount and the typical insurance payment. For uninsured patients or those paying out of pocket, the "provider charge" figure represents a baseline for what facilities in that area typically bill — useful context for negotiating a cash-pay rate or evaluating a quote. The site is available in both English and Spanish, and a mobile app is available for iPhone and Android.
FAIR Health Consumer shows averages for a geographic area, not facility-specific prices. It does not tell a patient what a specific hospital down the street charges. For that, the hospital's own published price data or a facility-specific tool is needed.
New Choice Health
New Choice Health (website: https://www.newchoicehealth.com/) is a free consumer tool that lets patients search for specific procedures and compare costs and quality data at individual hospitals and medical facilities in their area. Unlike FAIR Health, which shows regional averages, New Choice Health is facility-specific — a patient can search for an MRI or a knee replacement in their ZIP code and see how different nearby facilities compare on both cost and other factors. The site covers more than 12,000 facilities nationwide.
New Choice Health also operates a Patient Assist program for certain procedures, which connects patients who cannot afford full-price care with facilities willing to offer reduced-cost options. For patients who are uninsured or underinsured and facing an elective procedure, this is worth investigating through the site.
What hospitals are now required to publish
Since 2021, federal law has required every hospital in the United States to publish two things: a comprehensive machine-readable file listing prices for all items and services, and a consumer-friendly display covering at least 300 common shoppable services — things like lab tests, imaging, and outpatient procedures. Updated requirements that took effect in 2026 strengthened these rules further, requiring hospitals to publish actual dollar amounts rather than estimates or ranges for covered services.
In practice, compliance is uneven. A significant number of hospitals have not fully complied with these requirements, and even among those that have, the published data can be difficult to interpret. The consumer-friendly display is more accessible than the machine-readable files, and the easiest way to find it is to search the hospital's website directly for "price transparency" or "price estimator." Most major health systems now have a price estimator tool where a patient can enter a service and their insurance information to get an estimated out-of-pocket cost.
CMS maintains a hospital price transparency resource page at https://www.cms.gov/priorities/key-initiatives/hospital-price-transparency with information on the requirements and links to enforcement and compliance information.
Calling the hospital's billing or finance department
For patients who find the online tools insufficient or confusing, calling the hospital's billing or finance department directly before a procedure is scheduled is a reasonable next step. Most hospitals are required to provide a cost estimate on request. For uninsured patients, asking specifically about the hospital's cash-pay rate or self-pay discount is worth doing — many facilities offer a substantially reduced rate for patients paying without insurance, and this rate is often lower than the rate published in the hospital's price transparency files.
How much prices actually vary — and why it matters
The gap between the highest and lowest price for the same procedure in the same city can be significant. A patient who does not check prices in advance and simply uses the closest facility or the one their doctor suggests may pay several times what a patient who compared prices would pay for identical care. This applies to outpatient imaging, lab work, elective procedures, and other services that can be scheduled in advance. Emergency care and time-sensitive treatment are different — a patient cannot comparison shop a heart attack. But for anything that can be planned, looking up prices before scheduling is worth the time.
The comparison is most relevant for patients with high-deductible insurance plans, who are paying out of pocket before the deductible is met, and for uninsured patients paying cash. For patients with comprehensive coverage and low copayments, the financial impact of price variation may be smaller — though for large procedures, even patients with insurance can face meaningful out-of-pocket differences depending on which in-network facility they choose.
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