How we find and check prices

Where every listing and price on this site comes from, what "Verified" means, how the figures are calculated, and what happens when we get something wrong.

This page is the rulebook. About CalciumCT says who runs the site and how it makes money; this page says how the work is done, so that you can check any listing against the rule it was made under.

What this site publishes

Two things. A directory of facilities that perform coronary artery calcium scoring (CPT 75571), with their self-pay prices, referral rules and contact details. And a small set of guides that explain the test, its results and its costs. We do not book scans, perform or read them, or give medical advice.

Where a listing comes from

A facility is listed because its own website, or its health system’s, shows that it performs coronary calcium scoring (“calcium score”, “CAC” or CPT 75571) as an exam you can schedule at that location, unless its notes say otherwise. 571 listings rest instead on Medicare claims data that show the facility performed the scan. 231 listings come from the list of calcium-scan sites a heart-scan booking network publishes, where the center’s own page lists only CT. The notes of every one of those say so. Where any other listing comes from somewhere else, its notes say so too. We keep the address of the page a listing comes from and the date we read it, and the page has to load when we add the listing.

These do not qualify:

• a page about coronary CT angiography (CPT 75574), which uses contrast and is a different, more expensive test;
• a “heart screening” package that bundles the scan with other tests;
• an article explaining what a calcium score is;
• a health-system page that names the test but not the location that does it;
• a booking network, marketplace or aggregator, as the source of a price. We never take a price from one, and a listing based on one says so in its notes.

We pin each listing to its building, using the facility’s own map location where it publishes one and the US Census Bureau’s address geocoder otherwise. A listing that is a health system’s central scheduling line rather than one building says so in its notes, and its pin, and every distance measured from it, is approximate. Distances in search results are measured from that pin, and a listing without one never appears in ZIP search.

What a listed price is, and is not

A price on a listing is the facility’s self-pay price for the calcium scan alone, in whole dollars: the price the facility publishes on its own page; on a listing marked Verified, the price it gave us on the phone on the date shown; or, where its price notes say so, the price a call gave before the listing was confirmed. Where a facility states its price another way, such as a maximum out-of-pocket amount, the listing uses the facility’s own words for it.

It is never:

• a hospital chargemaster or list price, the gross figure in a billing system, which is not what a cash patient pays. Our data checks reject any price over $1,500 as almost certainly one of these, and flag anything over $600 for a second look;
• a limited-time promotion presented as the regular price;
• the price of a bundle or of a different test.

Where a facility charges separately for the radiologist’s interpretation and says so, the listing says so too. Where a facility publishes no price, the listing says “Call for cash price”; we do not fill the gap with an estimate. A program that offers the scan at no cost is recorded as $0 and counted separately from cash prices.

A listed price is not an offer, a quote or a promise, and facilities change prices without telling us. Confirm it with the facility before you go.

How we read hospital price files

Federal rules require every hospital to publish a machine-readable file of its prices, and to list it in an index named cms-hpt.txt at the root of its website (45 CFR 180.50). For Florida hospital systems in this directory that advertise a cash price, the price index sets that price beside the “discounted cash price” the system’s own files list for CPT 75571. We read the file the hospital publishes, found through that index, never a copy held by anyone else; we copy the CPT 75571 line exactly, with every value the file gives for it and the file’s own date; and we show every one of those systems, whatever its file says. The comparison comes off the page by itself when the price we list for one of those hospitals changes, or more than 400 days after we last read both sides. None of these figures is ever a listed price.

What “Verified” means

A listing shows Verified only after we have phoned the facility’s scheduling line and confirmed, for that listing:

1. that it does the coronary calcium scan;
2. its self-pay price, and whether that includes the radiologist’s read;
3. whether you need a clinician’s order first;
4. the number that actually reaches scheduling.

Where the call allows, we also confirm the address and whether HSA or FSA funds can be used there. Anything the call did not settle keeps what the facility’s own page says, or, if the page says nothing, stays unknown (“Ask when you call”); we do not fill it in from anywhere else. One call verifies one listing: a health system’s other sites are not marked Verified because one of them answered.

The badge shows the month of the call. A listing without it has not been confirmed by phone. Most are built from the published sources described above and have not been phoned; where a call gave a price but did not settle every point, the listing’s price notes say so. The absence of a badge does not mean anything is wrong with the listing. Either kind can still be wrong in any field, which is why every listing says to call before you go. Today 8 of 1272 listings are Verified.

Only a Verified listing can be featured as an advertisement, and paying for a featured placement does not make a listing Verified.

Every change to the listings is approved by a person before it is published, and automated checks reject a malformed one: a Verified listing without a recorded call, a date that is not a real date, or a price that looks like a list price.

How the figures are calculated

Every figure on this site that summarises our listings, on the cost page, the state, metro, city and facility pages and in our llms.txt, is calculated from them each time the site is built. None is typed in by hand. The rules are stated once, beside the numbers they produce, on the price index: which listings count, why a no-cost program is counted apart rather than as a $0 price, and how a median and a percentile are taken.

These figures describe this directory, not every facility in the country. We are adding metropolitan areas largest first, starting with the biggest in each state and those of more than 500,000 people. Smaller places are under-represented. We can only count the prices facilities publish or tell us.

The data behind the figures

Every listing is published as a free dataset on the price index, as CSV and JSON, under CC BY 4.0: one row per listing, with a stable id, its price and referral rule, the day it was last checked, whether it was confirmed by phone, and a link back to its page here. Our own working notes on a listing are never part of it.

Dates, and how often listings are checked

Every listing records the day it was last checked: the day of the call for a Verified listing, the day we read the facility’s page for the others. A page of listings prints that span once, as “Prices checked”; a facility’s own page, where it has one, prints its day; and a Verified card shows the month of its call. There is no fixed schedule yet for re-reading every facility’s page. Verified listings that go more than six months without a new call are flagged for another one.

A page’s “Last updated” date records the last editorial change to that page. It does not mean every listing on it was re-checked that day, and it does not mean a clinician reviewed it. A page that cites laws or insurer policies also says when we last read them.

Corrections

If a price, phone number, address or referral rule is wrong, or a facility has closed, email hello@calciumct.com. Tell us which listing and what you found; a link to the facility’s own page helps. Where a facility has a page of its own here, its “Claim or correct this listing” link starts the email for you. We check what you send against the facility, then correct the listing, mark it closed, or take it down. A closed listing disappears from the site; we keep the record so that it is not added back by mistake.

A facility can ask for a correction the same way. It does not need to buy anything, and it cannot pay to have an accurate price changed.

When we re-check a listing to correct it, its checked date moves with it. Corrections to a guide are made on the page and move its “Last updated” date.

Independence

A facility can buy a featured placement in one ZIP code for a flat, published fee. It carries an “Ad” badge wherever it appears and is described on our advertising disclosure. That is the only thing money buys here.

• Listing is free, and so is a phone check. No facility can pay to be added, removed, re-priced or marked Verified.
• Advertisers do not write or edit our guides, and have no say over anyone else’s listing.
• We are never paid per patient, per call or per booking, and we cannot see whether you booked.
• There are no affiliate links and no display ads on the site.

How the guides are written

Nobody who writes or edits our guides is a clinician. The guides are built from published sources: clinical guidelines, the studies behind them, and patient information from professional societies, each linked where it is used so you can check it. Numbers drawn from our own data are calculated from it when the site is built, and pages about money cite the law, regulation or insurer policy they describe, with the date we last read it.

Medical review

No clinician has reviewed any page on this site. Our guides are plain-language summaries of published sources, cited so you can check them, and we do not offer medical review. What a calcium score means for you, and whether to have the scan, are questions for a clinician who knows your history.

If that changes, each page a clinician has read will name them, their credentials and the date of the review; this section will say who they are and how they are paid; and a page edited after its review will say that too.

Questions

Anything this page does not answer: hello@calciumct.com.

Last updated October 3, 2026.