A neuropsychological evaluation is not a test. It is a block of a specialist’s time, and the price you are quoted is almost entirely a function of how many hours that specialist thinks your referral question needs. That is why two people can walk out of the same clinic with bills of $1,400 and $4,200.
Understanding the hourly structure is the whole game for a cash payer. Once you know the practice’s rate per hour and how many hours the estimate assumes, you can check whether a quote is reasonable, and you can ask the one question that actually moves the number. This guide covers published 2026 self-pay prices, how the 961xx billing codes stack up into a total, why hospital, private-practice and university pricing diverge so sharply, and how to get an itemized estimate before you commit.
What Does Neuropsychological Testing Cost Without Insurance?
The figures below are published cash or self-pay prices read in September 2026, alongside national Medicare claims data for the same codes.
| Setting or format | Low | Typical | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| University psychology training clinic (income-scaled) | $500 | $600 | $700 plus $50 intake |
| Private practice billed per hour | $250 | $275-$350 | $360 |
| Private practice flat-rate comprehensive evaluation | $1,250 | $2,500-$3,100 | $7,000 |
| Forensic or court-related work, per hour | $400 | $500 | $500 (half-day minimum) |
| Medicare allowed, first evaluation hour (96132, reference) | $102 | $124 | $124 |
Sources: The Center for Neuropsychology and Counseling, Goldfinch Neurobehavioral Services, Khan Neuropsychology, Florida Neuropsychology Group, Dirago Assessment, Washington State University Psychology Clinic, and the CMS 2024 Medicare Physician and Other Practitioners public use file, all read September 2026.
The published flat rates cluster tighter than the headline range suggests. Khan Neuropsychology lists $2,500 for comprehensive testing including intake, testing, scoring, interpretation, report and feedback, or $250 per hour if billed by time. Goldfinch Neurobehavioral Services charges a flat $3,100 for self-pay evaluations covering the same components, and states that the same work billed to insurance comes to $2,500-$4,000 depending on complexity. Florida Neuropsychology Group publishes $1,250 to $3,050 per evaluation depending on complexity. Dirago Assessment sits at the top of the market with a flat-fee range of $3,500 to $7,000.
Sources do disagree at the edges, and the disagreement is real rather than a measurement problem: these are different products aimed at different referral questions. Publishing the cross-source range, the honest answer is $1,250 to $7,000, with $2,500 to $3,100 being what a straightforward adult evaluation costs at a practice that publishes its prices.
How the Hours Stack Up
Neuropsychological testing is billed under a family of time-based codes, and knowing them is how you read an estimate.
- 96132 covers the first hour of evaluation services by the psychologist: integrating your history and records, interpreting the test results, clinical decision-making, treatment planning, and the feedback session.
- 96133 covers each additional hour of that same work.
- 96136 and 96137 cover test administration and scoring by the psychologist, in 30-minute units (first 30 minutes and each additional 30 minutes).
- 96138 and 96139 cover the same 30-minute administration units when a trained technician does the testing instead, which is why some practices can charge less.
Now put a real rate against them. The Center for Neuropsychology and Counseling in Pennsylvania publishes a per-provider fee schedule effective July 1, 2026 that prices neuropsychological evaluations under CPT 96132, 96133 and 96136 through 96139 at $275 per hour with one clinician, $350 with another, and $360 with a third. At $300 per hour, a battery that runs three hours of face-to-face testing, two hours of scoring and interpretation, two hours of report writing and one feedback hour is eight billable hours and roughly $2,400. That is the arithmetic behind every flat rate on this page.
The Medicare data shows how far providers’ billed charges sit above negotiated rates. In 2024, the national average submitted charge in an office setting was $317.32 for 96132 and $278.83 for each additional 96133 hour, against average Medicare allowed amounts of $124.09 and $95.38. The 30-minute administration units were submitted at roughly $113 to $128 and allowed at $33 to $40. A self-pay patient quoted the chargemaster number is being quoted something like three times what Medicare pays.
What Drives the Price
Setting. A private practice charges its hourly rate and nothing else. A hospital-based neuropsychology clinic adds a facility fee to the professional fee, which is the single largest reason the same battery costs more inside a health system. University training clinics are cheapest because the testing is done by supervised doctoral students: Washington State University’s Psychology Clinic charges $500, $600 or $700 for a neuropsychological assessment by household income band, plus a $50 intake, on a fee schedule effective May 2025.
The referral question. A focused evaluation for a single question uses fewer hours than a differential workup. The reasons people most often pay cash for this are dementia and cognitive-decline workups, traumatic brain injury and concussion, stroke recovery, learning disability documentation, presurgical evaluation before epilepsy surgery, and capacity or competency evaluations. Each carries a different expected hour count, and the presurgical and capacity evaluations tend to be the longest.
Who administers the tests. A practice using a psychometrist or technician bills 96138 and 96139 rather than the psychologist’s own 96136 and 96137 time. Some pass that saving along.
Whether it is clinical or forensic. Forensic and independent evaluations are priced in a separate market entirely, because the buyer is usually an attorney or an insurer rather than a patient. The Pennsylvania practice above prices forensic cases, court testimony and depositions at $500 per hour with a half-day minimum, and lists another clinician’s forensic work at $400 and up per session, against $275 to $360 per hour for clinical evaluations at the same practice. If you are paying for yourself, make sure your evaluation is being scheduled as a clinical one and not a forensic one.
Whether the report is included. Report writing is often the largest single block of hours. Confirm in writing that it is inside the quoted number.
Cash Price vs. Insurance
Insurance usually covers neuropsychological testing when a physician orders it for a defined clinical question, but almost always requires prior authorization, and plans commonly approve a limited number of hours rather than the full battery. If the psychologist bills more hours than were authorized, the balance lands on you at billed rates rather than at the negotiated rate.
That makes the self-pay flat rate genuinely competitive here. A $3,100 flat fee that covers everything can beat an insured path where a $4,000 deductible has not been met and the authorization covers six of ten hours. Ask the practice for both numbers: the flat self-pay price and the estimated insurance billing. Goldfinch, for example, publishes both side by side.
If you do use insurance, ask for a superbill even when the practice is out of network, and check the hospital’s posted prices before assuming the health system is cheaper. Our guide to hospital price transparency explains how to find the machine-readable file and read the self-pay column.
How to Pay Less
Get the good faith estimate and read the hour count. CMS requires providers to give uninsured and self-pay patients a written good faith estimate when care is scheduled at least three business days ahead or whenever you request one, and says you may be able to dispute a bill that comes in at least $400 above it. The number that matters on that document is not the total, it is the assumed hours. Ask what happens if testing runs short.
Ask directly for the flat self-pay rate. Practices that publish one almost always price it below what they bill insurers. If the practice does not publish a flat rate, ask whether they offer one for payment in full at the time of service.
Call the university clinic first. At $500-$700 for a full assessment, a training clinic is a fraction of private-practice pricing, and the work is supervised by licensed faculty. The tradeoff is a waitlist, which makes this a poor fit for urgent presurgical or capacity questions and a good fit for everything else.
Check whether a cheaper test answers the question. Not every cognitive complaint needs a full battery. Some workups start with imaging or an electrical study instead, and those have their own cash markets: see MRI cost without insurance and EEG cost. If attention is the actual question rather than memory or cognition, the far cheaper route is described in our ADHD testing cost guide, where a diagnostic interview often settles it for a few hundred dollars.
Demand an itemized bill and challenge the units. If you were billed after the fact rather than quoted up front, get the line-item breakdown and count the 30-minute units against the hours you actually spent in the office. Our guide to reading an itemized hospital bill covers how to request it and what to look for, and how to negotiate medical bills covers what to do once you find a discrepancy. Run the total through our fair price checker first so you know whether you are arguing about a real overcharge.
Ask about a payment plan before the testing date. Most practices require payment in full at check-in for self-pay, so the time to arrange installments is when you schedule, not when the invoice arrives.
The Bottom Line
Neuropsychological testing is one of the few healthcare services where the cash price is genuinely knowable in advance, because the practices that do it mostly publish either an hourly rate or a flat fee. Expect $2,500 to $3,100 for a comprehensive adult evaluation at a private practice, less at a university clinic, more inside a hospital or for a forensic question.
Before you pay a deposit, get three things in writing: the total, the number of hours it assumes, and confirmation that scoring, the written report, and the feedback session are included. Every expensive surprise in this category comes from one of those three.