DEXA scans in Santa Monica

Brent J Michael, MD, at 2001 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 470-W in Santa Monica, CA, runs DEXA scans for the Santa Monica area. Call (310) 829-7777 to schedule your appointment.

There is no single Santa Monica price: clinics publish their own rates, and cash-pay DEXA scans generally land between $99 and $250 by scan type. That still usually undercuts the $300-plus hospital imaging departments bill for comparable scans. Ask the clinic for its current rate when scheduling — HSA/FSA funds work at most.

Mostly when you want insurance to pay: an insurance-billed bone density exam needs your physician to order it first. Self-pay scans usually need no referral in Santa Monica, but ask when you book, since some hospital departments require one.

Often, yes, but only for bone density. If a physician orders the scan as medically necessary, say after a referral from a doctor at a health system in Los Angeles County like Providence Saint John's Health Center & UCLA Health Santa Monica, insurance usually covers it. Body composition scans booked for fitness reasons are self-pay. HSA and FSA cards work for both.

Yes. Nothing is injected and nothing encloses you: at Brent J Michael, MD you lie on an open table for 10-15 minutes while the scanner arm passes overhead. The X-ray dose is roughly a tenth of a chest X-ray.

Where a Santa Monica clinic offers body composition as well as bone density, one scan produces your body fat percentage, a limb-by-limb lean mass breakdown, a visceral fat reading, and bone mineral density. That combination is why a DEXA report replaces a stack of separate measurements, including the bone-density study a Providence Saint John's Health Center & UCLA Health Santa Monica physician would order on its own.

Plan on 30 minutes in Santa Monica — check-in, then 10-15 minutes on the table at Brent J Michael, MD. Results usually follow within a day or two.

No difference at all. "DXA" is the abbreviation radiology departments like Providence Saint John's Health Center & UCLA Health Santa Monica use; "DEXA" is the one patients search for. Both name dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, and both describe what you would book in Santa Monica.