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Check out this week’s podcast with Wes Spencer, Co-Founder of Sympl Benefits.

25 Jul 2025 · 1 min

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Wes Spencer, co-founder of Sympl Benefits, breaks down MRI pricing in the U.S.: hospitals charge $2,000 to $3,000 per scan while independent imaging centers run under $1,000, sometimes under $500. He says referral incentives push patients toward the expensive option.

Questions this video answers

About 40 million MRIs.

$2,000 to $3,000 (and often higher in some states).

Less than $1,000; in some cases less than $500.

Primary care → specialist → hospital's MRI facility (within the hospital ecosystem).

Chapters

For example, it's, it's a pretty routine process. I believe there's 40 million MRIs done across the country. So we're not talking about anything that's ultra complicated or specific. This is a taking a picture to find out and support a diagnosis. It's going to cost 2 to $3,000 at a hospital, probably much more in other states. But we have independent MRI facilities that can do it for less than a thousand, less than 500 in some cases. So why in the world are we not incentivizing the members of our health plans that are ultimately paying for this to to consider that there is options? The typical path is I talk to my primary care. My primary care refers me to a specialist. If that specialist needs a mri, they refer to the hospital's ecosystems MRI facility and that's where we have a problem. You know that MRI is going to cost triple or maybe four or five times what it should for the exact same picture.