MRI Lumbar Spine Cost in California
Mri lumbar spine w/o dye
$435Hospital 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
California Medicare physician rate (2026)
+13.5% vs nationalAverage of 29 localities. Office range $204.46–$257.47.
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 $121 on the Medicare allowed amount for mri lumbar spine. 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.
Your ZIP in California
A ZIP-level lookup matters more in California than in any other state; compare your area, whether that is the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, the Central Valley, or the rural north.
What mri lumbar spine costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in California 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.
National vs California
Where California ranks for this CPT
CPT 72148 by California locality
| Locality | Office |
|---|---|
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (san benito cnty) | $257.47 |
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (santa clara cnty) | $257.00 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (marin cnty) | $252.00 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (san francisco/san mateo/alameda/contra costa cnty) | $251.89 |
| napa | $237.72 |
| vallejo | $237.55 |
| santa rosa-petaluma | $223.60 |
| santa cruz-watsonville | $221.34 |
| san diego-chula vista-carlsbad | $219.13 |
| los angeles-long beach-anaheim (los angeles/orange cnty) | $218.24 |
| oxnard-thousand oaks-ventura | $217.34 |
| santa maria-santa barbara | $214.81 |
| sacramento-roseville-folsom | $214.77 |
| salinas | $213.97 |
| san luis obispo-paso robles | $210.49 |
| riverside-san bernardino-ontario | $205.56 |
| bakersfield | $204.80 |
| el centro | $204.47 |
| chico | $204.46 |
| fresno | $204.46 |
| hanford-corcoran | $204.46 |
| madera | $204.46 |
| merced | $204.46 |
| modesto | $204.46 |
| redding | $204.46 |
| stockton | $204.46 |
| visalia | $204.46 |
| yuba city | $204.46 |
| rest of california | $204.46 |
PE GPCI ranges from 1.096 to 1.442 in California. That index is why the same CPT is not one price statewide.
MRI Lumbar Spine and how California is priced
California is the most finely divided state in the Medicare fee schedule, with roughly thirty payment localities drawn around metropolitan statistical areas after CMS reformed the state's locality map. The San Francisco Bay Area carries some of the highest geographic adjustments in the nation, with San Francisco, San Jose, and the East Bay each priced separately, while Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and Sacramento have their own localities at somewhat lower levels. Rural and inland counties fall into lower-cost localities, so the same procedure can carry meaningfully different Medicare-approved amounts within a single day's drive. No other state shows this much in-state variation on the fee schedule itself.
California's markets differ sharply: the Bay Area combines high wages with heavily consolidated hospital systems, Los Angeles offers enormous choice across a sprawling region, and the Central Valley and far north face genuine access shortages. Where you are treated within the state matters more here than almost anywhere else in the country. Academic medical centers in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento handle much of the complex referral care.
This procedure: A lumbar spine MRI without contrast images the lower back, the region responsible for most back pain and sciatica, showing discs, nerve roots, and the spinal canal. It is the definitive test before considering injections or surgery for a suspected herniated disc or spinal stenosis. You lie on your back in the scanner for 20 to 40 minutes; it is painless but the flat position can be uncomfortable if lying down aggravates your pain.
What Is MRI Lumbar Spine?
A lumbar spine MRI without contrast images the lower back, the region responsible for most back pain and sciatica, showing discs, nerve roots, and the spinal canal. It is the definitive test before considering injections or surgery for a suspected herniated disc or spinal stenosis. You lie on your back in the scanner for 20 to 40 minutes; it is painless but the flat position can be uncomfortable if lying down aggravates your pain.
What Affects the Cost
- –This is one of the most shopped scans in America, and prices between hospitals and independent centers commonly differ several-fold.
- –Insurer rules pushing six weeks of conservative care first mean therapy visit costs often precede the scan.
- –Findings frequently lead to epidural injections or surgical consultations, so the MRI is often the gateway to a much larger episode of spending.
- –Contrast is only added for specific concerns like prior surgery or infection, at a higher-code price.
- –Open or wide-bore scanners for larger or claustrophobic patients can carry different pricing at specialty centers.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Do I meet my insurer's criteria yet, or will this be denied for lack of conservative treatment first?
- 2.What is the cash or negotiated price at nearby freestanding imaging centers?
- 3.Is my scan authorized at the specific location I am booked at?
- 4.Given my history, does the radiologist need contrast, and what would that add?
- 5.If the MRI shows a disc problem, what are the typical next-step costs I should anticipate?
Other featured procedures in California
MRI Lumbar Spine in other states
MRI Lumbar Spine in California: questions
The 2026 Medicare physician office rate for CPT 72148 averages $217.63 across 29 California localities, from $204.46 in CHICO to $257.47 in SAN JOSE-SUNNYVALE-SANTA CLARA (SAN BENITO CNTY). The hospital physician rate averages $217.63. Enter a ZIP for the exact locality.
Yes. CMS splits California into 29 payment localities. For this CPT the office physician fee spans $53.01 from the lowest to highest locality. A ZIP-level lookup matters more in California than in any other state; compare your area, whether that is the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, the Central Valley, or the rural north.
After the Part B deductible, coinsurance is usually 20% of the allowed amount: about $44 for the office physician line or $44 for the hospital physician line in California. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $217.63 is only the physician's share. Adding Medicare's facility payment brings the total to about $435 in a hospital outpatient department, or about $315 at an ambulatory surgery centre. Anesthesia, pathology and other codes billed the same day are extra. California ranks #49 of 51 states on the physician line (14% above the national office rate of $191.72).