Any visitor or foreigner planning to stay in the US, either short-term or long-term, has probably come across the warning that “you should get health insurance when you go to the US because healthcare is expensive”.
But, just how expensive is healthcare in the US? And how can health insurance help you?
Here we’ve detailed some of the average costs for common medical services in the US and what you can do to pay for them should you ever need to.
How Much Is a Doctor’s Visit in the US Without Insurance?
Here are some of the average costs for a doctor’s visit you may be required to pay in the US if you don’t have health insurance:
| Medical service required | Average costs* |
| Appointment with a primary physician | $150-$300 |
| STI screening and treatment | $300 |
| Pediatric visit | $100-$200 |
| Specialist consultation | $200 and up |
| Blood Work | $30-$100 |
| Imaging (MRI, X-RAY, Scan, etc.) | $400 to over $2,000 |
| Ultrasound | $200-$800 |
| A sprained or broken wrist (non-surgical) | $1000 and up |
| A sprained or broken ankle (non-surgical) | $500 and up |
| Emergency appendectomy | $2,000 to $12,000 |
Please note that these fees are an average representation of how much these procedures can cost in the US. Their price can vary greatly depending on which US state you’re getting treatment in, which hospital, what kind of treatment, the severity of your condition, and of course, whether you have insurance or not.
How Much Is a Visit to the Emergency Room in the US?
Average costs for emergency care in the US can vary as follows:
| Medical Services | Average costs |
| Ambulance | $400 to $1,200 |
| ER visit | $150 to $20,000 |
| Urgent care | $80 to $500 and more |
| Air ambulance | $2,000 to $200,000 and more |
As a foreign visitor (especially if you’re a short-term visitor), you may be required to use the emergency services more than you would other in-patient or out-patient services. That’s why it’s important to understand that these medical services will cost you.
One person even took to Reddit to share the high hospital bill they got left paying after visiting the emergency room after a car accident.
Costs for Dental and Eye Care in the United States
In the United States, often dental and eye care is separate from a basic health insurance plan, and you usually need separate insurance to cover those services, which can also be quite expensive, as shown here:
Dental procedures
| Medical Services | Average costs |
| Simple teeth cleaning | $100 |
| Dental exam | $50 to $90 |
| Tooth extraction | $135 to $500 |
| Dental implant | $2,000 and more |
| Root canal | $1,100 |
| Crown | $1,400 |
| Emergency filling | $100 to $250 |
Eye and Vision Care
| Medical Services | Average costs |
| Eye exam | $170 to $200 |
| Prescription glasses | $200 and more |
| Contact lenses | $50 to $70 per month |
| Lasik eye surgery | $2,000 to $4,000 |
| Cataract surgery | $330 to $12,000 |
Similarly to other healthcare costs, dental and eye care costs will change depending on what kind of procedure you need, how complicated it is, where you get your procedure, and so on.
How Can Visitors Pay for Healthcare in the US?
If you need to see a doctor while you’re visiting the US, you can just pay for the services yourself (out of pocket). But as mentioned above, most medical services in the US are expensive. To put it in perspective, a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that Americans spent around $7,000 per person on inpatient and outpatient care, compared to $3,851 in other “peer” countries.
What About Expats Living in the US?
If you’re living in the US long-term, either for employment or study purposes, then you have other options when it comes to paying for your healthcare. In most cases, as a foreign student in the US, you will have health insurance from your university. Whereas if you are employed, you will most likely have employment-based health insurance from your employer. You also have the option to purchase health insurance on your own.
In these cases, your insurance will help pay for some or all of the costs of your medical services; but if you don’t have any type of health insurance at all, you will be paying for all medical costs out of pocket.
How to Pay Less for Medical Care in the US?
Here’s what you can do to reduce the costs of healthcare in the US:
- For one, buy health insurance— this may be obvious, but health insurance helps cut healthcare costs in half or even to zero in some cases, depending on your policy. Even as a visitor, travel health insurance will offset some of the highest costs of medical services, such as emergency care.
- Secondly, ask for an itemized bill— in most online forums, people will advise you to get an itemized bill for the medical services you were provided when visiting a hospital. This bill details all of those services one by one instead of the total cost of your fee. This allows you to see if there are any errors, if you were charged wrongfully for a procedure you did not do, or if there are some services open to negotiating. For example, one Redditor also explains how, after they asked for an itemized bill, their charges were reduced to zero.
- Thirdly, use emergency services only when you need to— what we mean by this is to use the services available to you accordingly; for example, if you need immediate care but it’s not a life-threatening emergency, then go to urgent care instead of the emergency room. Of course, if you’re experiencing a real emergency, don’t be discouraged from calling an ambulance or going to the emergency room; your healthcare always comes first.