Pamela Valfer, in her home art studio in Pasadena, California. She was tested three times for covid and received a statement saying she might be responsible to pay $125 per test despite a ban on out-of-pocket costs. (Heidi de Mrco/KHN)
Because there are no caps on cost, consumers and insurers often get billed hundreds of dollars for the most reliable PCR test. Prices are rising and they can’t fight back.
Pamela Valfer needed multiple COVID-19 tests after repeatedly visiting the hospital last fall to see her mother, who was being treated for cancer. Beds there were filling with COVID patients. Valfer heard the tests would be free.
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high prices and pushback from state regulators.
The listed charge for a basic PCR COVID test at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles is $480. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital lists $440 as the gross charge as well as the cash price. Those amounts are far above the $159 national average for the diagnostic test, which predominated during the first year of the pandemic, at more than 3,000 hospitals checked by HPS.