<i>Why do two places in the same geographic area have a 3x price discrepancy?</i><p>Because determining the cost basis for medical procedures isn&#x27;t all that easy.  It&#x27;s not hard to figure out what the MRI machine costs, but how about the physician and nurses?  How about the building?  They do a lot more than just MRIs at these hospitals&#x2F;clinics.  From what I&#x27;ve heard from people working in hospitals, the hospitals themselves have no idea what their procedure costs actually are.<p>What they do instead is charge as much as they can for each procedure and hope they turn a profit at the end of the year.