The ordinary person fears the unknown, but if you have disposable income, you can be extraordinary and elect to fear, well, every conceivable known.
Fast-expanding startup Prenuvo offers three MRI scan options, ranging from $999 to $2.5k, that can screen the head, torso, or full body, for nearly all imaginable health maladies.
- Patients pay a hefty out-of-pocket sum — no insurers are on board yet, and scans are recommended annually — to visit a Prenuvo clinic and rendezvous with an MRI machine.
- Prenuvo currently has eight locations, with five more “coming in 2023” and another three earmarked for 2024.
What happens during these scans?
Scans differ in length, from a very claustrophobic 20 minutes to a very, very claustrophobic 60 minutes, and contain no radiation.
- Prenuvo says it screens for 500 common and rare conditions. It can detect most tumors, aneurysms, and cysts, and find cancers early.
- Included in the fees: a nurse practitioner calls to go over results following each scan.
Who has endorsed this?
Oh, wow, shocker — Prenuvo’s CEO Andrew Lacy is into it. “When I got a body scan, I learned more about my health than the health system had told me my entire life,” Lacy told Axios.
The American College of Preventive Medicine, however, is not. Medical experts only recommend whole-body scans when symptoms call for it, warning scanning can bring little benefit, and exhaust money and health care resources.
- Prenuvo’s site concedes that “less than 5% of customers receive ‘life-altering’ news” following a scan.
However, the “experts” many Americans care about most — celebs — apparently love it. Per People, Maria Menounos, Paris Hilton, and Cindy Crawford have all met the machine.
