3 procedures · 3 hospitals · Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH · 817 staffed beds across 3 facilities · files published through March 2026
What 3 common medical procedures actually cost at 3 hospitals in metropolitan Boston, MA (Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH), read from each hospital's own federally-required price-transparency file. Prices here run from about $49 for an A1c Test to $973 for a Brain MRI. Hospitals covered include MCLEAN HOSPITAL CORPORATION, SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL, PORTSMOUTH REGIONAL HOSPITAL. Every figure is tied to a named hospital and its file's publication date. These are price references from public data — not a quote, a bill, or medical or financial advice.
Important — a price reference, not a bill
These figures are aggregated from hospitals' public price-transparency files — not a quote, a
bill, an insurance benefit determination, or medical advice. Your actual out-of-pocket cost
depends on your insurance plan (deductible, copay, coinsurance, network), the exact service and
any complications, and which hospital you use. Always confirm price and coverage with the
hospital and your insurer before care.
What the Boston numbers show
The widest gap in Boston: the same A1c Test costs 3.8× as much at one hospital as at another
SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL reports $19 for an A1c Test; PORTSMOUTH REGIONAL HOSPITAL reports $72 for the same billing codes, in the same metro.
Who runs the 3 Boston-area hospitals behind these prices
2 non-profit, 1 for-profit. The largest is MCLEAN HOSPITAL CORPORATION at 324 beds. Ownership matters to a price file: for-profit chains and non-profit systems publish self-pay cash prices at very different rates.
The Boston files behind this page span February 2026 to March 2026
Hospitals republish their Standard Charges file roughly once a year and each carries its own date, so these figures were not all filed at the same moment. Every hospital's own publication date is in its entry below.
How the negotiated, cash and chargemaster figures differ — and where each comes from — is
explained on the methodology page.
Cheapest to dearest, the same Brain MRI costs 3.8× as much across Boston-area hospitals: SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL reports $338, MCLEAN HOSPITAL CORPORATION reports $1,270 — an unusually wide gap for identical billing codes.
Every Boston-area hospital price for a Brain MRI (3)
Every Boston-area hospital reporting a Brain MRI in its
price-transparency file, sorted by negotiated price. "vs median" compares each hospital's
negotiated rate to the $973 median on this page. "File date" is
when that hospital last published. A dash means the hospital did not report that price — it is
never filled with a guess.
Hospital
Negotiated
vs median
Cash
List price
File date
SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL
$338
65% below median
—
—
Mar 2026
PORTSMOUTH REGIONAL HOSPITAL
$973
at the median
—
$6,891
Feb 2026
MCLEAN HOSPITAL CORPORATION
$1,270
30% above median
$1,773
$2,364
Mar 2026
How these 3 hospitals label a Brain MRI in their own files
SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL
HC MRI, BRAIN, W/O CONTRAST; Mri brain stem w/o dye
PORTSMOUTH REGIONAL HOSPITAL
Magnetic resonance (eg, proton) imaging, brain (including brain stem); without contrast material; MRI BRAIN W/O CONTRAST
Cheapest to dearest, the same Lumbar MRI costs 3.3× as much across Boston-area hospitals: SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL reports $338, MCLEAN HOSPITAL CORPORATION reports $1,115 — an unusually wide gap for identical billing codes.
Every Boston-area hospital price for a Lumbar MRI (3)
Every Boston-area hospital reporting a Lumbar MRI in its
price-transparency file, sorted by negotiated price. "vs median" compares each hospital's
negotiated rate to the $956 median on this page. "File date" is
when that hospital last published. A dash means the hospital did not report that price — it is
never filled with a guess.
Hospital
Negotiated
vs median
Cash
List price
File date
SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL
$338
65% below median
—
—
Mar 2026
PORTSMOUTH REGIONAL HOSPITAL
$956
at the median
—
$7,613
Feb 2026
MCLEAN HOSPITAL CORPORATION
$1,115
17% above median
$1,557
$2,077
Mar 2026
How these 3 hospitals label a Lumbar MRI in their own files
Cheapest to dearest, the same A1c Test costs 3.8× as much across Boston-area hospitals: SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL reports $19, PORTSMOUTH REGIONAL HOSPITAL reports $72 — an unusually wide gap for identical billing codes.
Every Boston-area hospital price for an A1c Test (3)
Every Boston-area hospital reporting an A1c Test in its
price-transparency file, sorted by negotiated price. "vs median" compares each hospital's
negotiated rate to the $49 median on this page. "File date" is
when that hospital last published. A dash means the hospital did not report that price — it is
never filled with a guess.
Hospital
Negotiated
vs median
Cash
List price
File date
SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL
$19
61% below median
—
—
Mar 2026
MCLEAN HOSPITAL CORPORATION
$49
at the median
$56
$75
Mar 2026
PORTSMOUTH REGIONAL HOSPITAL
$72
49% above median
—
$301
Feb 2026
How these 3 hospitals label an A1c Test in their own files
SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL
Glycosylated hemoglobin test; HC GLYCATED HEMOGLOBIN A1C
MCLEAN HOSPITAL CORPORATION
Hemoglobin Glycosylated (A1c)
PORTSMOUTH REGIONAL HOSPITAL
Hemoglobin; glycosylated (A1C); HEMOGLOBIN A1C
The 3 Boston-area hospitals behind these prices
Every price on this page comes from one of these hospitals' own machine-readable Standard
Charges files. They sit in 3 different towns
(Belmont, Portsmouth, South Weymouth) across 3counties
(Middlesex, Norfolk, Rockingham). A hospital's ownership, size and the completeness of its file all
shape what you see above.
MCLEAN HOSPITAL CORPORATION
115 Mill Street, Belmont, MA (Middlesex County)
It is a mid-sized 324-bed private non-profit psychiatric hospital with no emergency department.
It publishes a negotiated rate for 3 of the 3 procedures tracked here, a self-pay cash price on 3 and a chargemaster list price on 3. Its file was last published March 2026 as zipped CSV (CMS schema v3).
It is a mid-sized 284-bed private non-profit acute-care hospital with an emergency department. CMS rates it 2 stars out of 5 overall.
It publishes a negotiated rate for 3 of the 3 procedures tracked here. Its file was last published March 2026 as JSON (CMS schema v3), and lists up to 12 payer-specific rates on a single tracked line item.
It is a mid-sized 209-bed for-profit acute-care hospital with an emergency department. CMS rates it 3 stars out of 5 overall.
It publishes a negotiated rate for 3 of the 3 procedures tracked here, a chargemaster list price on 3. Its file was last published February 2026 as JSON (CMS schema v3), and lists up to 33 payer-specific rates on a single tracked line item.
Source: hospitals' own machine-readable Standard Charges files,
published under the U.S. Hospital Price Transparency rule (45 CFR §180.50).
Most recent hospital file in this dataset: July 2026.
Prices are references, not quotes or bills, and never medical or financial advice —
where a hospital reports no price, nothing is shown rather than a guess.
Frequently asked questions
Which Boston hospitals publish their prices?
3 Boston-area hospitals publish a usable Standard Charges file covering the procedures tracked here: MCLEAN HOSPITAL CORPORATION, SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL, PORTSMOUTH REGIONAL HOSPITAL. Each hospital's own file date, bed count and what it does and does not report are listed on this page.
What is the cheapest and most expensive procedure priced in Boston?
Of the 3 procedures tracked here, an A1c Test has the lowest typical negotiated price at $49 and a Brain MRI the highest at $973. Both figures are medians across the Boston-area hospitals that published a rate for them.