Stethoscope and dollar Pricespaid by UnitedHealth's commercial health plans, based on claimsfrom 12.5 million tests, varied from three-fold up to 24-fold ormore for different types of tests. (Photo: Shutterstock)

U.S. consumers could save more than $18 billion a year ifproviders stopped overpricing their diagnostic and testingservices, according to a new report from UnitedHealth Group (UHG). Theinsurance giant said it found prices can vary significantly for common tests such as MRIscans and echocardiograms.

“This price variation leads to gross overspending for manyconsumers, even for common health care services such as diagnostictests, which play an important role in the diagnosis, monitoring,and treatment of disease,” the report said.

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