Chest X-Ray Cost
X-ray exam chest 2 views
$122Hospital outpatient total2026 Medicare, physician + facility- ✓Your ZIP's wage-adjusted hospital and surgery centre rates
- ✓Five nearby hospitals by name, with CMS star ratings
- ✓The add-on codes that typically land on the bill
- ✓A word-for-word script for asking for a good-faith estimate
- ✓A private link you can reopen and share
- ✓Everything in the Premium report
- ✓15 nearby hospitals instead of five
- ✓Filled good-faith-estimate request letter
- ✓Bill-negotiation letter
- ✓Printable PDF download
National Medicare physician rate (2026)
What the whole procedure costs
The rate above is the physician’s fee on its own. The facility bills separately, and for most procedures the facility is the larger half of the bill. These are 2026 national Medicare amounts.
Choosing a surgery centre over a hospital saves about $66 on the Medicare allowed amount for chest x-ray. Ask whether your procedure can be done at an ambulatory surgery centre.
Medicare may pay the facility separately for this code or package it into another service on the same day, so treat the facility share as an upper bound. Medicare allowed amounts are not what an uninsured patient is charged, and not a quote. Private plans typically allow more.
Get the rate for your ZIP
CMS adjusts this CPT by locality. A five-digit ZIP is enough — no account, no insurance card.
What chest x-ray costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in your area moves the bill more than anything else you control.
Rates for your ZIP, 5 named hospitals with CMS ratings, the add-on codes, and the scheduler script.
One-off payment, no account and no subscription. You get a private link and an email. No medical records and no insurance card, ever.
What these numbers are
Every figure on this page is a 2026 Medicare allowed amount: the physician line comes from the Physician Fee Schedule adjusted by geographic practice-cost indices, and the facility totals come from the CMS hospital outpatient (OPPS) and ambulatory surgery centre rates. None of them is a hospital chargemaster price, your insurer's contracted rate, or a quote. Anesthesia, pathology, imaging reads and follow-up care are billed under their own codes when they apply, and an inpatient stay is paid a different way again.
How CMS prices CPT 71046
Work is about 21% of the office total RVU; practice expense is about 77%. Localities with a high PE GPCI move this code more when practice expense is a large share.
Office vs hospital for this code
Office (non-facility) physician rate: $33.07. Hospital (facility) physician rate: $33.07.
Medicare patients typically owe 20% of the allowed amount after the Part B deductible — about $7 for the office physician fee, before any Medigap coverage. That coinsurance does not include a hospital facility fee.
Labeled private-plan and cash ranges on this page are arithmetic multiples of Medicare, not negotiated quotes. Ask the billing office for the CPT code, the site of service, and a good-faith estimate.
What Is Chest X-Ray?
A two-view chest X-ray takes front and side pictures of your lungs, heart, and ribs in about five minutes of actual room time. It is among the most commonly ordered imaging tests, used for coughs that will not quit, suspected pneumonia, shortness of breath, or pre-operative checks. You stand against a plate, take a deep breath and hold it for each view, and there is no preparation, no needles, and only a minimal radiation dose.
What Affects the Cost
- –Emergency department chest X-rays cost several times more than the same two views at an urgent care or imaging center.
- –The radiologist's interpretation is a separate professional fee from the technical charge for taking the images.
- –Hospital-owned clinics can attach facility fees that independent offices do not.
- –If findings prompt a follow-up chest CT, that next test costs an order of magnitude more, so where the X-ray leads matters.
- –Some urgent care visit charges bundle the X-ray while others itemize it, changing the apparent price.
How It Is Billed
CPT 71046 specifically means two views; a single view (71045) or additional views carry different codes and prices. The claim usually splits into a technical component billed by the facility and a professional component billed by the radiologist, though offices with in-house reading may bill globally. When done during an office or urgent care visit, the X-ray appears as a line item alongside the visit code rather than replacing it.
Insurance & Coverage Notes
Chest X-rays are covered as diagnostic imaging under all plans without prior authorization, subject to your deductible and any imaging copay; they are cheap enough that many plans apply a flat copay in office settings. On a high-deductible plan you pay the negotiated rate, which varies more by facility than almost any other factor. There is no preventive or screening chest X-ray benefit; routine screening chest X-rays are no longer recommended, so a screening claim would likely be denied.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Can I get this done at an imaging center or urgent care rather than the hospital?
- 2.Is the radiologist's reading included in the quoted price?
- 3.Will this be billed separately from my visit charge today?
- 4.What is your cash price if I have a high deductible?
- 5.If something shows up, what follow-up imaging would you order and what does that cost?
Chest X-Ray (CPT 71046): questions
The 2026 national Medicare physician rate for CPT 71046 is $33.07 in an office and $33.07 in a hospital. Enter a ZIP code to apply the geographic adjustment for your locality.
For CPT 71046 the office and hospital physician rates are essentially the same ($33.07). The hospital will still usually add a separate facility fee that this page does not show.
A two-view chest X-ray takes front and side pictures of your lungs, heart, and ribs in about five minutes of actual room time. It is among the most commonly ordered imaging tests, used for coughs that will not quit, suspected pneumonia, shortness of breath, or pre-operative checks. You stand against a plate, take a deep breath and hold it for each view, and there is no preparation, no needles, and only a minimal radiation dose. CMS bills it as “X-ray exam chest 2 views.”
Not on its own. $33.07 is the physician allowed amount. Medicare also pays the facility, which takes the total to about $122 in a hospital outpatient department or about $56 at an ambulatory surgery centre. Anesthesia, pathology and imaging interpretation billed under other codes are separate again. Private-plan allowed amounts are often higher than Medicare; your deductible and coinsurance still apply.
For cash-pay surgery shopping, use this CPT as the Medicare floor when you compare written quotes. How cash-price shopping works.