After an accident left Kelly Cason unconscious last summer, she ended up in the emergency room at Henderson Hospital.
Doctors at the hospital ordered X-rays of her knees and a CT scan of her brain during the July 2025 visit, Cason said.
“The doctors and nurses were all so nice,” she said.
However, the emergency care Cason received came at a steep price. Cason was billed $65,000 for the visit, she said.
Same procedure, sharply different prices
The scan Cason received is now among the procedures listed in the newly created Nevada Hospital Price Finder, an online tool that allows patients to compare prices for services at hospitals.
The tool can help patients shop around before receiving nonemergency care, patient advocates say. But it would likely offer little immediate help to patients facing potentially life-threatening emergencies.
For those able to compare prices in advance, the differences can be substantial. The database shows that the reported cash price — the amount a hospital typically lists for patients paying without insurance — can differ by more than $1,600 for the same head CT, an analysis of pricing data for five Clark County hospitals by the Las Vegas Review-Journal found.
Prices for other common and routine procedures can vary by hundreds or thousands of dollars, sometimes even among rates negotiated with insurance companies, the review also found.
Summerlin Hospital Medical Center and Henderson Hospital, which are both part of the Valley Health System and owned by for-profit hospital operator Universal Health Services Inc., have a cash price of $3,422.80 for a head CT without contrast, according to the database.
St. Rose Dominican Hospital, Siena campus — about 10 miles from the Henderson Hospital — has a cash price of $1,738.37 for the same CT, the database says.
The database also reports that Boulder City Hospital has a cash price of $2,171 for the same CT, while University Medical Center in Las Vegas has the lowest among the hospitals reviewed, at $1,672.20.
New tool simplifies hospital price comparisons
Federal rules that took effect in 2021 generally require hospitals to post pricing information online and update it at least annually. Assembly Bill 343, which took effect Jan. 1, put similar requirements into state law and gave state regulators authority to enforce them and penalize hospitals for violations.
Gov. Joe Lombardo said in a statement that the new transparency law protects Nevadans from unexpected bills and overcharges by making hospital pricing information more accessible before they receive care.
“No more surprises, no more guesswork — just straightforward answers on healthcare costs,” Lombardo said.
PatientRightsAdvocate.org developed the Nevada Hospital Price Finder using the data hospitals are required to post online. The nonprofit also operates similar price finders for hospitals in New York City and at least four other states, including Colorado, Indiana, Ohio and Oklahoma.
The mandatory hospital data is “not consumer-friendly, which is why we created a shopping tool,” said Ilaria Wheeler, research director at PatientRightsAdvocate.org. When most people “open one up, they’d be like, ‘Oh, crap, this is so ugly, there’s so much data.’ That’s really where our tool comes in handy. It’s a consumer-friendly version.”
The price finder presents the hospitals’ data without changing the underlying data and checks their websites for updated files about every one to two months, Wheeler said.
Using price data to challenge medical bills
PatientRightsAdvocate.org also helps patients use the data to challenge high medical bills.
When people report receiving high medical bills to PatientRightsAdvocate.org, the nonprofit advises patients to request an itemized bill listing each service, charge and billing code. The patient or the nonprofit’s staff can then search those codes in the price finder and compare each billed charge with the price the hospital published for the patient’s insurance plan.
Hospitals typically lower a bill when patients point out a discrepancy between the charge and the hospital’s published price, or sometimes forgive it entirely, Wheeler said, adding that hospitals sometimes attribute the difference to a system error.
“That’s the beauty of price transparency,” she said. “We’ve been really successful in helping patients fight medical bills using this price transparency data.”
Prices are not promises
Some of the prices listed for UMC in the price finder do not match the estimate available directly from the hospital.
“The Nevada Hospital Price Finder website may be slightly out of date,” UMC spokesperson Scott Kerbs said in an email.
As of press time, UMC’s separate online estimator produced a cash price of $1,756 for a CT like Cason’s — nearly $100 more than the price finder price.
UMC Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Wakem said that patients seeking an estimate for care should use the hospital’s online estimator and other official UMC resources.
UMC isn’t the only hospital that reported a discrepancy to the Review-Journal. Boulder City Hospital’s current cash price for the head CT is $2,634.15 — nearly $500 more than the price finder price, Chief Operating Officer Rae Cummings said.
Cummings attributed the recent price change to the hospital’s May 1 transition from a Critical Access Hospital to a Rural Emergency Hospital, which changed its pricing and reimbursement structure.
Valley Health System and Dignity Health did not confirm their head CT prices by press time.
Patrick Kelly, president and CEO of the Nevada Hospital Association, said he questions how useful the Nevada Hospital Price Finder is for patients trying to compare hospitals, saying patients often have limited ability to choose where they receive care. Emergencies leave no time to shop, and physicians often direct scheduled procedures to hospitals where they practice, he said.
“I’ve never talked to a patient who’s used this website,” Kelly said.
Kelly recommends that insured patients contact their insurance companies before scheduled care or other non-life-saving care to determine how their deductibles, co-payments and network rules would apply. Uninsured patients should contact hospitals directly to ask about their current cash prices, charity care policies and available payment plans, he said.
The listed prices on the price finder can provide a starting point, but they do not tell patients exactly what they will owe, Kelly said.
“There’s just so many other things that come into play,” he said.
Contact Lucas Hellberg at lhellberg@reviewjournal.com.
