Published prices
Lower back X-ray
A standard X-ray series of the lower spine, at least four views.
Negotiated rates published
$17.46 – $1,368
across 37 hospitals in the Chicago metro. Lowest at Provident Hospital Cook County, highest at Copley Memorial Hospital, Inc. Both are figures those hospitals published themselves — nothing here is averaged, estimated or rounded.
Every figure above comes from the 37 hospitals listed below and from the single billing code hospitals use for it. Each is that hospital's own published figure.
Sorted cheapest first. A published figure that behaves like a placeholder rather than a real price — one cent, or a figure orders of magnitude below what other hospitals publish for the same billing code — never leads this order. It stays listed, after every other figure, ordered by its own amount among the others like it.
Nothing was excluded: none of the figures published here behave like a placeholder rather than a price.
Comparisons against other hospitals were computed on 2 November 2026. Each price carries its own fetch date; a comparison is a snapshot of what other hospitals had published when it ran, not a standing fact.
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