About DexaExplained

DexaExplained is built and maintained by a software engineer who kept meeting the same two questions — what does a DEXA scan cost, and what do the numbers mean — and turned the published answers into tools. Every price is cited to a provider page and every reference band to a published dataset on the methodology page.

A DEXA scan produces the best body-composition data most people will ever hold — and then hands it over as a PDF with no explanation, from an industry with no price transparency. Both problems are fixable with public information: providers publish prices, and the reference data that gives a body-fat percentage context (NHANES, collected with the same technology) is published science. This site connects the two.

The rules the site runs on:

• Every price is cited. The cost calculator shows only prices read from a provider's own published page, with the link and the date we read it. No "average cost" invented from thin air.
• Every reference band is sourced. Percentiles come from published NHANES reference data; formulas come from the papers that defined them. All of it is on the methodology page.
• No fake credentials. The site is written by The DexaExplained Team — a builder, not a clinician — and says so. If a credentialed reviewer ever reviews a page, their real name will appear; until then, no reviewer line appears at all.
• A hard boundary around medical territory. Body-composition education only. Bone-density interpretation, diagnosis, and treatment belong to physicians, and this site sends readers there rather than pretending.
• Monetization can't touch the numbers. Affiliate links are marked, disclosed, and kept in one auditable registry — details here.

Found an error? The contact page goes straight to the person who can fix it.