A few months ago I saw an article in TechCrunch about Ezra, a startup offering a full-body MRI to detect cancer. The costs are out-of-pocket and the options include a whole-body scan for $1950, a torso scan for $1350, and a prostate scan for $675. I went for it.

Why I did it

This service piqued my interest because I have known a number of people who died early from cancer — including my grandfather — and what struck me as odd about many of these people dying from cancer is how slowly they were diagnosed. These people could easily have afforded regular, wide-ranging tests to detect their cancer early but tests weren’t run. Investigative medical tests were’t run because we have systems in place to control the costs of the medical system. …