Oh, My Aching Wallet: MRI instead of physical therapy for low back pain leads to $4,793 higher price
In addition to seeking less invasive follow-up care, the people who went directly to physical therapists spent an average of $1,871, while those whose first move was an MRI spent an average of $6,664 in the year following their initial complaint to their doctors. With only a few hundred people in each sample, Fritz acknowledged, the cost figure was somewhat skewed by a small number of very expensive surgeries among those who had MRIs first. But overall, the cost difference is very clear.