Why do Abdomen & Pelvis CT Scan prices vary so much?

Each hospital negotiates separately with each insurer. In these files the priciest tenth of hospitals negotiated more than 10.4 times what the cheapest tenth did, and state medians run from $238 in Puerto Rico to $4,909 in South Dakota.

Is the cash price cheaper than using insurance?

Sometimes. At 221 of the 975 hospitals that list a cash price (23%), it is lower than that hospital's own median negotiated rate. If you have a high deductible, ask the hospital for its self-pay price before you book.

What is the Medicare rate shown here?

$356 is the CMS national outpatient (OPPS) payment rate for this service (July 2026). We show it as a government baseline: the national median negotiated rate is 1.9 times it.

All procedures / Abdomen & Pelvis CT Scan

Abdomen & Pelvis CT Scan Cost in the US (2026): What 1,225 Hospitals NegotiatedNPI VERIFIED

Across 1,225 US hospitals that publish federally required price files, the median negotiated rate for a CT scan of the abdomen and pelvis with contrast is $676 — 1.9× the Medicare outpatient rate of $356. The middle half of hospitals negotiated between $389 and $1,850; the priciest tenth negotiated more than $3,499, 10.4× the cheapest tenth (under $336). Hospitals that list a self-pay price ask a median of $2,333 (975 hospitals).

Code CPT 74177 · Source: hospital machine-readable files (45 CFR §180), file dates 2022-11-12 to 2026-09-28 (median 2026-04-01) · Medicare baseline: CMS OPPS Addendum B, July 2026 · Data extracted 2026-10-06 · Page updated 2026-10-07

National median

$676

all plan types · 1,225 hospitals

Middle half

$389–$1,850

25th–75th percentile of hospitals

Median cash price

$2,333

self-pay · 975 hospitals list one

Medicare baseline

$356

CMS OPPS national · July 2026

1,225 hospitals, one bar per price band

median $676Medicare $356

$0$2,500$5,000

Each bar counts hospitals whose median rate falls in that price band; the last, dashed bar holds the 29 at $5,000 or more. The cheapest tenth negotiated under $336, the priciest tenth over $3,499 — 10.4× apart for the same procedure.

These are contract reference rates, not your bill. A median across hospitals is not a quote for your plan or network. Your out-of-pocket cost depends on your deductible, coinsurance and network status.

This is the hospital's facility fee. The radiologist who reads the images bills separately.

Coverage: 1,225 of the 5,419 hospitals in the CMS roster have an identity-verified price file with this procedure in our data. It is not a random sample, and a hospital missing here has not been judged non-compliant — we may simply not have its file yet. 94 of these 1,225 hospital files were more than 12 months old at extraction — hospitals must update yearly; we keep the figures and say so rather than hide them.

By insurance type

Insurance type	Hospitals	Median	Middle half	× Medicare
Commercial (plan type not stated)	743	$1,665	$792 – $3,423	4.7×
PPO	771	$1,729	$835 – $3,205	4.8×
HMO	521	$1,070	$610 – $2,445	3.0×
EPO	128	$1,549	$684 – $4,048	4.3×
POS	56	$1,369	$460 – $2,766	3.8×
ACA Marketplace	477	$660	$514 – $1,619	1.9×
Medicare Advantage	704	$392	$349 – $1,337	1.1×
Medicare (as listed)	690	$369	$346 – $512	1.0×
Medicaid	780	$495	$304 – $1,310	1.4×
Federal employees (FEP)	22	$2,019	$1,251 – $3,643	5.7×
Workers' comp	136	$1,274	$517 – $3,452	3.6×

Plan types are grouped from each hospital's plan names. Each figure is a median of hospital-level medians; types with fewer than 20 hospitals are left out.

By state

State	Hospitals	Median	Middle half	× Medicare	Median cash
Alabama	16	$316	$314 – $332	0.9×	$1,911
Arizona	12	$567	$399 – $983	1.6×	$1,071
Arkansas	15	$589	$420 – $1,079	1.7×	$2,668
California	43	$496	$446 – $998	1.4×	$2,657
Colorado	8	$1,310	$403 – $2,128	3.7×	$827
Florida	49	$450	$389 – $632	1.3×	$2,686
Georgia	32	$564	$435 – $1,910	1.6×	$2,430
Hawaii	7	$434	$352 – $812	1.2×	$2,178
Idaho	12	$1,788	$1,417 – $2,153	5.0×	$2,248
Illinois	47	$1,288	$580 – $3,132	3.6×	$3,572
Indiana	27	$799	$676 – $1,428	2.2×	$2,057
Iowa	48	$1,808	$1,123 – $2,937	5.1×	$2,700
Kansas	45	$1,025	$683 – $1,700	2.9×	$1,383
Kentucky	43	$472	$420 – $1,028	1.3×	$1,859
Louisiana	27	$537	$327 – $1,411	1.5×	$1,879
Maine	9	$1,323	$370 – $1,507	3.7×	$1,491
Maryland	9	$329	$217 – $361	0.9×	$322
Massachusetts	9	$844	$483 – $1,695	2.4×	$3,095
Michigan	31	$404	$348 – $626	1.1×	$2,025
Minnesota	30	$1,958	$1,210 – $2,864	5.5×	$2,528
Mississippi	23	$327	$306 – $401	0.9×	$1,949
Missouri	29	$423	$350 – $1,205	1.2×	$2,681
Montana	20	$2,077	$1,293 – $2,737	5.8×	$2,667
Nebraska	32	$2,725	$617 – $4,542	7.6×	$4,080
Nevada	8	$593	$593 – $1,422	1.7×	$8,750
New Hampshire	6	$1,236	$609 – $2,007	3.5×	$8,247
New Jersey	23	$599	$414 – $603	1.7×	$779
New Mexico	18	$2,473	$446 – $4,307	6.9×	$2,641
New York	38	$440	$423 – $522	1.2×	$1,399
North Carolina	22	$943	$357 – $1,267	2.6×	$2,767
North Dakota	14	$2,448	$1,727 – $2,903	6.9×	$2,373
Ohio	58	$533	$361 – $914	1.5×	$1,986
Oklahoma	36	$559	$320 – $1,385	1.6×	$1,999
Oregon	23	$628	$475 – $1,248	1.8×	$2,059
Pennsylvania	58	$450	$366 – $1,076	1.3×	$2,986
Puerto Rico	12	$238	$226 – $247	0.7×	$400
Rhode Island	5	$397	$373 – $401	1.1×	$1,221
South Carolina	27	$363	$349 – $427	1.0×	$3,397
South Dakota	11	$4,909	$4,163 – $5,362	13.8×	$5,471
Tennessee	23	$342	$340 – $396	1.0×	$818
Texas	102	$931	$469 – $1,944	2.6×	$1,882
Utah	21	$3,357	$3,214 – $3,643	9.4×	$3,571
Vermont	9	$3,421	$2,745 – $4,104	9.6×	$4,114
Virginia	19	$992	$520 – $1,736	2.8×	$1,542
Washington	17	$1,575	$1,326 – $2,308	4.4×	$2,877
West Virginia	8	$2,314	$338 – $3,802	6.5×	$2,362
Wisconsin	27	$1,208	$714 – $1,621	3.4×	$2,033
Wyoming	9	$2,549	$2,410 – $3,753	7.2×	$2,142

middle half of hospitalsstate medianMedicare rate · a dotted end means the range runs past $5,000

States with at least 5 hospitals in our data (48 states). 3 smaller states are counted in the national figures but not listed — a median of two or three hospitals says more about those hospitals than about the state.

Get the data

Hospital-level and insurer-level rates for this procedure are in the full dataset. A free three-procedure sample (brain MRI, head CT, diagnostic colonoscopy) is open under CC BY 4.0: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23199844 · Kaggle.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a CT scan of the abdomen and pelvis with contrast cost in the US?: Across 1,225 hospitals that publish federally required price files, the median negotiated rate is $676, and the middle half of hospitals fall between $389 and $1,850. Self-pay cash prices have a median of $2,333 across the 975 hospitals that list one. What you pay out of pocket depends on your deductible, coinsurance and network.
Why do Abdomen & Pelvis CT Scan prices vary so much?: Each hospital negotiates separately with each insurer. In these files the priciest tenth of hospitals negotiated more than 10.4 times what the cheapest tenth did, and state medians run from $238 in Puerto Rico to $4,909 in South Dakota.
Is the cash price cheaper than using insurance?: Sometimes. At 221 of the 975 hospitals that list a cash price (23%), it is lower than that hospital's own median negotiated rate. If you have a high deductible, ask the hospital for its self-pay price before you book.
What is the Medicare rate shown here?: $356 is the CMS national outpatient (OPPS) payment rate for this service (July 2026). We show it as a government baseline: the national median negotiated rate is 1.9 times it.

Other imaging prices

Brain MRI

median $799 · 1,185 hospitals

Knee MRI

median $567 · 1,191 hospitals

Lower Back MRI

median $528 · 1,186 hospitals

Neck MRI

median $533 · 1,177 hospitals

Head CT Scan

median $303 · 1,227 hospitals

Chest CT Scan

median $448 · 1,215 hospitals

Sinus CT Scan

median $296 · 1,215 hospitals

Abdominal Ultrasound

median $217 · 1,213 hospitals

Chest X-Ray

median $112 · 1,210 hospitals

Lower Back X-Ray

median $157 · 1,206 hospitals

See all 30 procedures →