CT Scan of Abdomen and Pelvis (without contrast)

What it is

A CT scanner sends x-rays around the body from every angle and a computer turns the measurements into cross-sectional slices. This code covers the belly and the pelvis together, in one pass, with nothing injected into a vein and usually nothing to drink. Skipping the dye is not a shortcut. Some of the things doctors most often look for in this part of the body are already bright or already dark on plain images — a kidney stone, a fracture through the pelvis, air outside the bowel — and adding a dense white dye to the picture can actually hide a stone rather than reveal it. The scan itself takes a few minutes on the table.

Why it is done

• To find a stone anywhere along the urinary tract in someone with sudden one-sided flank pain, which is the single most common reason this exact study is ordered
• To look at the bones of the pelvis, hips and lower spine after a fall or a crash
• To see whether a known problem has changed, when a previous scan already answered the harder questions
• To image someone whose kidney function or contrast allergy makes injected dye a poor choice, accepting a less detailed look at the soft organs in exchange

What to expect

There is no IV and, in most stone protocols, nothing to drink beforehand. Patients change into a gown, remove metal, lie flat on a narrow table and are moved through the scanner ring while holding still. A technologist may ask for one held breath. Because nothing is being injected, there is no warm flush and no metallic taste — the whole visit is often shorter than the paperwork. A radiologist reads the images afterward and sends a report to the ordering doctor; in an emergency department that report usually comes back within the hour, and from an outpatient center it can take a day or more.

Questions worth asking

• Is this quoted as one charge for the abdomen and pelvis together, or as two separate scans? Two line items on the same visit for the same pass through the scanner are worth querying.
• If a doctor decides afterward that dye was needed, will the repeat scan be billed as a second full study?
• Was a blood test of kidney function ordered alongside this, and is that lab billed separately?
• Does the price I was quoted include the radiologist's interpretation, or only the scanner time?