How Much Does an MRI Brain With Contrast Cost in Montana?
Mri brain stem w/dye
$438Hospital outpatient total2026 Medicare, physician + facilityUnder 2026 Medicare rates, an MRI brain with contrast costs up to about $438 in total at a hospital outpatient department, counting both the physician and the facility (national rates). Outside a hospital, at an independent imaging center, lab or office, Medicare's full rate in Montana averages $269.
- ✓Your ZIP's wage-adjusted hospital and surgery center 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
Montana Medicare physician rate (2026)
-0.0% vs nationalSingle statewide locality.
What the whole procedure costs
The office rate above is what an imaging center, lab or office is paid for the whole test. In a hospital, the facility bills its own fee and the physician bills only the reading. These are 2026 national Medicare amounts.
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. For a test like this the physician in a hospital bills only the reading (the professional component); outside a hospital one global fee covers the whole test, shown in the office rate above. Medicare allowed amounts are not what an uninsured patient is charged, and not a quote. Private plans typically allow more.
Your ZIP in Montana
Look up your ZIP for local context, whether you are in Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, Great Falls, Helena, Kalispell, or one of Montana's frontier counties.
What MRI brain with contrast costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in Montana 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.
For example 59001.
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 center 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. In Montana the office and hospital physician lines for this CPT differ by $187.04.
National vs Montana
Where Montana ranks for this CPT
MRI Brain With Contrast and how Montana is priced
Montana runs on a single statewide locality with geographic indices near the bottom of the national range, so its published Medicare rates are uniform across nearly 150,000 square miles. Billings and a remote Hi-Line town share identical adjustment factors, a simplicity that belies the enormous distances involved in actually reaching care. CMS applies a rural floor to work adjustments that benefits frontier states like this one. For pricing purposes, Montana is one market; for access purposes, it is dozens of small ones.
Billings hosts the state's largest medical community and serves as a referral hub not just for Montana but for northern Wyoming and the western Dakotas, with Missoula, Great Falls, Bozeman, and Kalispell anchoring their own regions. Frontier counties may be hours from the nearest hospital that performs a given procedure. Some Montanans travel to Salt Lake City, Denver, or Seattle for highly specialized care.
This procedure: A brain MRI with contrast adds an IV injection of gadolinium dye partway through the scan to highlight areas with increased blood flow or a disrupted blood-brain barrier, such as tumors, infections, or active inflammation. The experience matches a standard brain MRI, lying still in the scanner for 30 to 45 minutes, plus a small IV placed in your arm. The dye is generally well tolerated and passes in your urine within a day.
What Is MRI Brain With Contrast?
A brain MRI with contrast adds an IV injection of gadolinium dye partway through the scan to highlight areas with increased blood flow or a disrupted blood-brain barrier, such as tumors, infections, or active inflammation. The experience matches a standard brain MRI, lying still in the scanner for 30 to 45 minutes, plus a small IV placed in your arm. The dye is generally well tolerated and passes in your urine within a day.
What Affects the Cost
- –The gadolinium contrast agent itself is billed as a separate supply line, with newer agents costing more.
- –The IV placement and injection may add administration charges depending on the biller.
- –Some facilities require a recent kidney function blood test before giving contrast, adding a lab charge.
- –Facility choice, hospital versus freestanding center, remains the dominant price variable for any MRI.
- –The radiologist's professional fee for a contrast study is higher than for a non-contrast scan.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Does my authorization specifically cover a contrast study, not just a plain MRI?
- 2.Is the contrast agent billed separately, and how much does it add?
- 3.Do I need a kidney function test first, and who bills for that?
- 4.Why is contrast-only being ordered rather than the combined without-then-with protocol?
- 5.What is the total at a freestanding center versus the hospital, including the radiologist fee?
Other featured procedures in Montana
MRI Brain With Contrast in other states
MRI Brain With Contrast in Montana: questions
Under 2026 Medicare rates, an MRI brain with contrast costs up to about $438 in total at a hospital outpatient department, counting both the physician and the facility (national rates). Outside a hospital, at an independent imaging center, lab or office, Medicare's full rate in Montana averages $269. Montana is a single Medicare locality, so the physician rate is the same statewide.
Not on the physician fee schedule. Montana uses one locality, so the Medicare physician rate is the same from one end of the state to the other. What still changes is site of service (office vs hospital) and any facility fee the hospital bills on its own claim.
After the Part B deductible, coinsurance is usually 20% of the allowed amount: about $54 for the office physician line or $16 for the hospital physician line in Montana. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
It depends on where the test is done. At an independent imaging center, lab or office, $268.87 is Medicare's full rate in Montana, covering the test and the reading. In a hospital outpatient department the physician is paid only for the reading (about $81.83) and the hospital is paid separately, which brings the national total to up to about $438. Montana ranks #35 of 51 states on the non-hospital rate (within 2% of the national office rate of $268.88).