What Hospitals Charge in Nebraska: A Price Transparency Data Analysis

MRI Prices Across Nebraska

MRI scans are among the most commonly shopped medical procedures in the U.S. Here's what Nebraska hospitals charge for a cash-pay MRI:

MRI Brain (CPT 70551)

A patient at Memorial Hospital would pay 3.1x more for the same brain MRI than a patient at Regional West Medical Center.

MRI Knee (CPT 73721)

The cheapest knee MRI in our Nebraska data ($1,787 at Kearney Regional) costs about 60% of the most expensive ($2,996 at Regional West) — a 1.7x spread.

All MRI Types — Lowest vs. Highest Cash Price

The pattern across Nebraska's MRI prices is tighter than Colorado's: spreads range from 1.7x to 3.1x, compared to 10–12x in Colorado. But even a 2–3x difference means thousands of dollars out of pocket for patients paying cash. A $1,288 brain MRI at Regional West Medical Center in Scottsbluff costs $2,752 less than the same scan at Memorial Hospital in Seward.

Note: Mary Lanning Healthcare reported an $11 MRI Brain with Contrast price that is clearly a data error and has been excluded from this analysis.

Beyond MRIs: Price Variation Across Common Procedures

The price gaps aren't limited to imaging. Here are the biggest cash price spreads we found across Nebraska hospitals for procedures patients commonly shop for:

Some of the extreme ratios — particularly a 533x spread on a metabolic panel and 208x on a lipid panel — are almost certainly hospitals reporting their full chargemaster (list) prices as "cash" prices. This is a pattern we see nationally and raises questions about how meaningfully some hospitals are complying with the transparency rule. Even setting those aside, hip replacements ranging from $935 to $42,460 represents a real and significant gap.

Cash vs. Negotiated: The Uninsured Penalty

At Mary Lanning Healthcare in Hastings — the hospital with the most complete pricing data in our Nebraska dataset — we can compare what cash-pay patients are charged versus what insurance companies negotiate. The gap is steep:

At Mary Lanning, insured patients pay 26–44% less than cash-pay patients for the same procedures. For a C-section delivery, that's an $1,857 difference. For an MRI Brain with Contrast, it's $2,262. These gaps are notably larger than what we found in Colorado (8–27%), suggesting that uninsured Nebraskans face an even steeper penalty relative to insured patients.

What This Means for Patients

1. Prices vary 2–3x for MRIs across Nebraska — smaller than Colorado's 10–12x spreads, but still thousands of dollars. A brain MRI ranges from $1,288 to $4,040 depending on which hospital you walk into.
2. The uninsured penalty is steep — Cash patients at Mary Lanning pay 27–44% more than negotiated insurance rates. For high-cost procedures like deliveries and MRIs, that penalty runs into thousands of dollars.
3. Even within smaller Nebraska cities, it pays to compare — You don't need a big metro area to find meaningful price differences. Hospitals across rural Nebraska report significantly different prices for identical procedures.
4. The data is messy — Some hospitals appear to report chargemaster (list) prices as "cash" prices, which inflates the apparent cost. This inconsistency is itself a problem that the federal transparency rule was designed to address.