How Canadians Book a Full Body Scan in the US: Cost, Wait Times, and What to Expect

This article is general information, not medical advice. Screening decisions belong to you and the health professional who knows your history.

Stop waiting for a system that moves only once you are already sick. You were told the imaging is elective, and that one word decides your year. A full body scan in the US is a door you can open yourself.

At Craft Body Scan a full body scan is US$2,495, published on the pricing page rather than quoted on request. No referral is required, and no insurance pre-authorization is required either. You choose a date, you pay privately, and nobody asks which province you live in.

The scan takes under 10 minutes. A board-certified radiologist reads every image, and your report lands in your patient portal within 5 to 10 business days. Eight scan centers run across seven states, so the nearest one is usually a drive or a short flight.

Cost is where almost every Canadian starts, so start there.

What a Full Body Scan in the US Costs, in US Dollars

Price is the first question Canadians ask, and it deserves a direct answer. Private screening at home is quoted in Canadian dollars, while cross-border screening is quoted in US dollars. Those numbers only compare once you convert them, so published pricing matters more than usual.

Prices published by Craft Body Scan and current at the time of writing. Availability varies by center, so check the location page before booking.

The Full Body Scan at $2,495 covers the heart, the lungs, and the abdomen and pelvis in one visit. Bone density is included. A closer look at what the Full Body Scan covers lays out the anatomy and the calcium score that comes with it.

Two things about a full body scan are worth saying plainly. This is private pay, so no provincial plan and no Canadian insurer is billed for you. The published price buys the scan, not the flight, the hotel, or the follow-up visit at home.

The exchange rate is the one part of the bill no clinic sets. Prices are set in US dollars, so your card is billed at the day’s rate plus your issuer’s foreign transaction fee. Settle that with your bank before you travel, not at the payment desk afterwards.

If you are comparing imaging costs more widely, our breakdown of how MRI pricing works without insurance covers the same ground for MRI. Money, at least, is knowable before you commit to a full body scan. Time is the harder number, and it is the one that decides most of these trips.

How That Compares With Waiting at Home

The wait is why most Canadians start looking south, so it is worth knowing its actual size. Not the anecdote about a cousin in Sudbury. The measured national figure, collected from physicians across all ten provinces and published every year.

Physicians surveyed for the Fraser Institute’s 2025 wait-time report reported a median wait of 28.6 weeks from family-doctor referral to treatment. That was down from 30.0 weeks the year before. Ontario reported the shortest total wait at 19.2 weeks, New Brunswick the longest at 60.9.

For imaging specifically, the same report put the median wait at 8.8 weeks for a CT scan and 18.1 weeks for an MRI. Those are national medians, so half of patients waited longer. Your province decides which half you are likely to land in.

Now the honest part, because these are two different clocks.

The Canadian figures measure how long you wait to get a scan. The 5 to 10 business days Craft Body Scan quotes measures how long you wait for your report afterwards. Subtracting one from the other would be dishonest, and we will not pretend otherwise.

What the two together show is narrower than the headline, and we would rather say so. Private pay removes the referral step and the whole queue sitting behind it. In its place you get a date that you picked yourself for your full body scan.

There is a second difference here, and it matters more than most Canadians expect before they look. In the public system, imaging follows a symptom. With no symptoms there is often no referral in the queue at all, which changes the arithmetic completely.

In that situation the wait is not 18 weeks at all. It is open-ended, because nothing has entered the queue to begin with. That gap is exactly what a full body scan exists to fill for people who feel fine.

Which Craft Body Scan Location Is Closest to You

Craft Body Scan runs eight centers across seven states. Which one you pick turns less on distance than on which scan you want, because the menu is not identical everywhere. Sort by what you need first, then by how far you will travel.

• Columbus and Nashville sit closest to the Ontario and Quebec corridor, where most of the Canadian population lives.
• Charlotte, Raleigh, and Tampa suit readers already travelling to the southeast.
• Austin and Scottsdale are the practical options from western Canada and for anyone wintering in the sunbelt.
• Tulsa is the original center and the only one running the full menu, MRI included.
• Every center offers the Full Body Scan, the heart scans, and bone density, so the $2,495 scan is available wherever you land.

Hours and addresses for all eight scan centers are on the locations page. The MRI question deserves its own answer, because Canadians researching private screening usually arrive from MRI rather than CT. The two are not interchangeable, and the price difference is the smaller of the two reasons.

Read that last row before you book a flight.

The Whole Body MRI offered in Tulsa runs at the Tulsa center only. A reader in Toronto who wants MRI is flying to Oklahoma, not driving to Ohio. That is not a small detail when you are pricing a trip.

If the drive to Columbus is what makes this possible, the Full Body Scan is the scan that fits. It runs at every center, including whichever one sits nearest to your border crossing. Whichever you choose, the day itself looks much the same.

What Scan Day Looks Like, Start to Finish

Booking a full body scan is a form or a phone call. You give a name, an email, a phone number, and the center you want. Nothing in that flow asks for a US address, a US insurer, or a doctor’s order.

Bring four things. Government photo identification and the travel documents you would carry across any border, plus a payment method that works internationally. Then a written list of your current medications, and a short note on what runs in your family.

That last one is not paperwork for its own sake. A family history of heart disease or cancer is the context a radiologist reads your images against. Say it plainly on the form rather than hoping someone asks you about it later.

The appointment is quick. A full body scan takes less than 10 minutes to complete, and you are dressed and out well inside an hour. There is no sedation, no scope, and no overnight stay to plan a trip around.

Our walkthrough of what your first scan appointment involves covers the room, the machine, and the timing. Read it the night before if you like knowing the layout. The scan is shorter than the drive you took to reach it.

Then you go home and the work continues without you. A board-certified radiologist reviews every image, and your report reaches your patient portal within 5 to 10 business days. Anything flagged comes with guidance attached, so the report does not leave you guessing.

You download the report and take it to your own doctor in Canada. That is where any follow-up belongs, and where it should stay. Plan that handoff before you travel, because a report is only as useful as the physician who reads it next.

What a Full Body Scan Can and Cannot Tell You

Any screening service that will not discuss the limits is selling you something rather than informing you. Start with radiation, which is the objection that stops most people before price ever comes up. The published numbers are less alarming than the reputation.

Published radiation doses for CT exams come from the Radiological Society of North America and the American College of Radiology. A chest CT delivers about 6.1 mSv. A CT of the abdomen and pelvis delivers about 7.7 mSv, according to the same table.

Both figures work out to roughly two to two and a half years of natural background radiation. A low-dose CT of the kind used for lung cancer screening runs about 1.5 mSv. That is nearer six months of background exposure.

Those numbers reflect current protocols, not the machines of twenty years ago. Older comparisons still circulate, and they describe equipment that has since been replaced. Check the date on any radiation figure before you let it decide anything for you.

The evidence is stronger for some parts of this scan than for others, and lumping them together would mislead you. The USPSTF lung screening recommendation is a grade B recommendation published in 2021. Lung screening rests on firmer evidence than anything else a full body scan touches.

It supports annual low-dose CT for adults aged 50 to 80 with a 20 pack-year smoking history. That covers people who still smoke and people who quit within the past 15 years. Outside that group the recommendation does not apply.

Coronary calcium scoring is well described too, and MedlinePlus explains what a coronary calcium score measures. A score of zero suggests a very low chance of a heart attack over the next several years. Your own doctor can act on that number.

Whole-body screening of people without symptoms is a different question, and the research there is thinner. The National Cancer Institute is blunt about the trade-offs in the NCI on screening risks. It is worth reading in full before you book anything.

Results can look abnormal when there is no cancer present at all. Screening sometimes finds cancers that would never have caused symptoms. And not every screening test has been shown to lower the risk of dying from the disease it looks for.

What that means for you is a mixed answer, honestly given. A full body scan may find something small and treatable years before you would have felt it. It may also find something harmless that leads to more tests and more waiting.

It cannot rule out every disease, and it was never designed to. A clear report is not a promise of health, and anyone who tells you otherwise is overselling. Weigh both sides, then decide with the physician who knows your history.

Questions Canadians Ask Before Booking

How much is a full body scan in the US?

At Craft Body Scan the Full Body Scan is US$2,495, with bone density included. Other scans run from $640 for a Heart Scan to $3,265 for the Presidential Body Scan.

Can I get a full body scan without a referral?

Yes. No referral and no insurance pre-authorization are required. You book directly, choose your center, and pay privately.

What does a full body scan detect?

A full body scan looks for early signs of heart disease, lung findings such as nodules, and abnormalities in the abdomen and pelvis. A coronary calcium score comes with it. It can help detect some conditions early, and it cannot detect everything.

How long do results take?

Your full body scan report reaches your patient portal within 5 to 10 business days, with guidance on anything flagged. A board-certified radiologist reviews every image.

Will a Canadian doctor accept the report?

The report is yours to download and share. How your physician uses it is between the two of you, so mention the trip before you go rather than after.

Is the scan covered by my provincial plan or by private insurance?

No. This is a private-pay service and no Canadian plan is billed on your behalf. Budget the full US amount plus travel.

Which location should a reader in Ontario choose?

Columbus and Nashville are the nearest centers to the Ontario and Quebec corridor, and both run the Full Body Scan. If you specifically want MRI, that runs in Tulsa.

How long does the scan itself take?

A full body scan takes under 10 minutes on the table, with no sedation and no overnight stay.

Book the Date Instead of Waiting for One

If you have spent a year being told your imaging is not urgent enough, you already know the cost of waiting. It is not measured in dollars. A full body scan in the US puts the date back in your hands.

The price is published, no referral is required, and a board-certified radiologist reads every image. Your report is back within 5 to 10 business days. Nothing in that sequence depends on a queue or on someone deciding you are sick enough.