Imaging · procedure code 72148
Lower back MRI cost in Alaska
Juneau, AK has 50 filings for MRI lumbar spine, without contrast. We need 100 before we will publish a market figure, so this page shows Alaska instead and says so. These are the rates plans published under federal law. Not billed charges, and nothing here is scaled, adjusted or estimated to stand in for the market we do not hold.
State market
Lower back MRI
AK · procedure code 72148
We do not have a publishable distribution for Juneau, AK, so this is the AK market instead. The label above says so on purpose.
Middle price
$220
Half of this market is above it, half below
Middle half spans
$121 to $397
3.3x from low to high
The expensive end
$704
What the priciest providers charge
Medicare reference · Alaska (nearest published locality)
$223
Performed in an office
Negotiated prices from published filings, reported only where the sample supports it. Statewide peer distribution, not a single-city sample. What plans have agreed to pay, not what a patient is billed. Filings as of July 20, 2026.
Reading it
What this distribution actually says.
The spread
The middle half of this market runs from $121 to $397, a 3.3x difference for the same procedure code in the same city. That gap is between contracts, not between quality.
Against Medicare
Medicare pays $223 for this service at its Alaska locality. We do not turn that into a percentage here, because the price above is Alaska and that Medicare figure is one locality inside it. Two different maps do not divide.
The expensive end
One in ten filings sits at or above $704. If a plan's network is weighted toward that end, the difference does not show up in a premium quote. It shows up in the claims.
How wide the data runs
The carriers that filed for this procedure in this market. What each plan has agreed to pay, side by side. These are prices, not bills, so they do not show how often anyone needs it.
The same service elsewhere
Lower back MRI across other markets.
Put this in front of a client.
Every figure on this page carries its source, its scope and the date the corpus was built, so it survives being forwarded to someone who was not in the meeting.