MRI Cost in Texas: City-by-City Cash Prices (2026)
Texas has one of the most competitive independent-imaging markets in the US, and one of the widest hospital price spreads. The same brain MRI is listed at $1,335 by one Houston hospital and $20,244 by another. Here is how the market works, with verified published prices for Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Fort Worth.
Key insight: Published cash rates at Texas imaging programmes start at $240 to $300. Texas hospital transparency files list the same scans at $1,300 to $20,200. Choosing a freestanding centre over a hospital is worth more than any coupon, discount or negotiation tactic combined.
Texas MRI Costs by City
Each guide lists only prices that providers actually publish, with source links and retrieval dates. Providers that quote by phone are labelled quote-only, never given an invented figure.
Houston
from $263Published cash rates from $263. Hospital cash prices from $1,312 (Memorial Hermann) to $20,244 (HCA Northwest) for the same brain MRI.
MRI cost in HoustonDallas
from $263Programme rates from $263, flat $300 published for five common scans. Methodist Dallas lists a $2,324 cash brain MRI. Open MRI guidance included.
MRI cost in DallasAustin
from $263Published rates from $263. Baylor Scott & White Austin lists $2,557 cash for a brain MRI. Most local centres quote by phone only.
MRI cost in AustinSan Antonio
from $240The cheapest published rates of the five metros, from $240. Hospital cash prices run $1,380 (CHRISTUS Westover Hills) to $9,343, both figures from the hospitals' own files.
MRI cost in San AntonioFort Worth
from $263Published rates from $263. Fewer publicly posted prices than Dallas; the guide explains exactly who publishes and who quotes by phone.
MRI cost in Fort Worth1,325 NPI registry records across 37 Texas metro areas (290 with the MRI-specific code), with registry phone numbers and nearest alternatives. August 2026 file; an identifier registry, not a licence register.
How MRI Pricing Works in Texas
Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio each have dozens of freestanding imaging centres competing on price. Chains like Touchstone, Gateway, Envision, Longhorn, SimonMed and American Health Imaging operate across the state, alongside single-site independents. Most quote cash rates by phone rather than publishing them.
Federal transparency files reveal a wider cash-price spread in Texas than almost anywhere: the same brain MRI is listed at $230.91 by Harris Health (Houston's public system), around $1,300 to $1,650 at Houston Methodist, Memorial Hermann and Baylor St Luke's, and $5,600 to $20,200 at HCA hospitals in the Houston metro.
Under the federal Hospital Price Transparency rule, every Texas hospital must post a machine-readable file of its standard charges, including the discounted cash price. The files exist and are genuinely useful, but they are built for analysts, not patients. Our city guides pull the headline cash figures out of that data, parsing each hospital's own file directly, so you can see the spread without opening a 500 MB JSON file.
The pattern in every Texas metro is the same one we document nationally: freestanding imaging centres charge a fraction of hospital rates for the identical scan, read by the same calibre of radiologist. Our national sourced ranges, $400 to $2,000 at imaging centres vs $1,500 to $8,000 at hospitals for most single body parts, hold in Texas, and the published Texas floor is lower than most states. See MRI cost without insurance and how to save on an MRI for the tactics.
Verified Published Prices Across Texas
Lowest published cash price we verified per city (MRI without contrast, radiologist report included), and a hospital cash price from the same city's transparency data for contrast.
| City | Lowest published (imaging programme) | Hospital cash price example (brain MRI) |
|---|---|---|
| Houston | $263.22 | $1,335.50 Houston Methodist |
| Dallas | $300.00 (from $263) | $2,324.00 Methodist Dallas |
| Austin | $263.22 | $2,556.77 Baylor Scott & White Austin |
| San Antonio | $239.95 | $2,743.79 Methodist Hospital, lower of two lines in the same file; the other is $9,342.89 |
| Fort Worth | $263.22 | No figure retrieved; see city guide |
Imaging-programme rates: RadiologyAssist published city rate pages (cervical spine MRI without contrast shown; other scans within roughly $15 of it), retrieved 3 August 2026. Hospital cash prices: each hospital's own machine-readable file published under the federal Hospital Price Transparency rule, parsed directly by us and retrieved August 2026. File dates: Houston Methodist 1 April 2026; Methodist Dallas 20 March 2026; Baylor Scott & White Austin 13 June 2026; Methodist Hospital San Antonio 1 May 2026. Full tables and source links on each city page.
Cash-Pay Networks Founded in Texas
Green Imaging
Quote per orderGreen Imaging is a physician-owned cash-pay imaging network founded in Houston in 2011 by radiologist Dr. Cristin Dickerson, now coordinating scans nationwide through 4,500+ partner facilities. It publishes no public rate card: you send your doctor's imaging order and ZIP code, and its concierge team returns one bundled price, facility fee and radiologist read included, paid upfront with no bill afterwards. For Texas cash-pay patients it is a natural quote to collect alongside the published rates above.
How Green Imaging's pricing worksTexas MRI Costs, Frequently Asked Questions
A typical MRI in Texas runs $500 to $1,400 cash at an independent imaging centre, which is our own estimate: no imaging operator publishes a per-state cash price. Hospitals are measured, not estimated: reading 125 Texas hospitals' own federal price files puts the cash price for a brain MRI at $236 to $10,390, median $2,190 against a median gross charge of $4,174, and a further 42 Texas hospitals publish their chargemaster unchanged as a "cash price", reaching $23,252. Booking programmes such as RadiologyAssist list Texas rates from $240 to $300 for common scans without contrast, with the radiologist report included.
Sources, all retrieved 3 August 2026: radiologyassist.com published city rate pages for Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Fort Worth (programme rates, radiologist report included); hospital cash prices parsed by us directly from each hospital's machine-readable file published under the CMS Hospital Price Transparency rule (harrishealth.org, memorialhermann.org, houstonmethodist.org, methodisthealthsystem.org, bswhealth.com, christushealth.org and HCA Healthcare posting files; file dates 25 June 2025 to 13 June 2026, retrieved August 2026; no third-party aggregator figure is used); cms.gov Hospital Price Transparency rule; greenimaging.net (network model, no public rate card). Statewide typical ranges are our own sourced estimates, method described on the methodology page.