How much does a knee arthroscopy with cartilage removal cost in the US?

Across 824 hospitals that publish federally required price files, the median negotiated rate is $3,378, and the middle half of hospitals fall between $2,696 and $4,553. Self-pay cash prices have a median of $3,745 across the 359 hospitals that list one. What you pay out of pocket depends on your deductible, coinsurance and network.

Why do Knee Arthroscopy prices vary so much?

Each hospital negotiates separately with each insurer. In these files the priciest tenth of hospitals negotiated more than 10.9 times what the cheapest tenth did, and state medians run from $656 in Idaho to $6,892 in Oregon.

Is the cash price cheaper than using insurance?

Sometimes. At 105 of the 359 hospitals that list a cash price (29%), it is lower than that hospital's own median negotiated rate. If you have a high deductible, ask the hospital for its self-pay price before you book.

What is the Medicare rate shown here?

$3,343 is the CMS national outpatient (OPPS) payment rate for this service (July 2026). We show it as a government baseline: the national median negotiated rate is 1.0 times it.

All procedures / Knee Arthroscopy

Knee Arthroscopy Cost in the US (2026): What 824 Hospitals NegotiatedNPI VERIFIED

Across 824 US hospitals that publish federally required price files, the median negotiated rate for a knee arthroscopy with cartilage removal is $3,378 — 1.0× the Medicare outpatient rate of $3,343. The middle half of hospitals negotiated between $2,696 and $4,553; the priciest tenth negotiated more than $7,570, 10.9× the cheapest tenth (under $695). Hospitals that list a self-pay price ask a median of $3,745 (359 hospitals).

Code CPT 29881 · Source: hospital machine-readable files (45 CFR §180), file dates 2022-11-12 to 2026-09-14 (median 2026-04-01) · Medicare baseline: CMS OPPS Addendum B, July 2026 · Data extracted 2026-10-06 · Page updated 2026-10-07

National median

$3,378

all plan types · 824 hospitals

Middle half

$2,696–$4,553

25th–75th percentile of hospitals

Median cash price

$3,745

self-pay · 359 hospitals list one

Medicare baseline

$3,343

CMS OPPS national · July 2026

824 hospitals, one bar per price band

median $3,378Medicare $3,343

$0$5,000$10,000

Each bar counts hospitals whose median rate falls in that price band; the last, dashed bar holds the 37 at $10,000 or more. The cheapest tenth negotiated under $695, the priciest tenth over $7,570 — 10.9× apart for the same procedure.

These are contract reference rates, not your bill. A median across hospitals is not a quote for your plan or network. Your out-of-pocket cost depends on your deductible, coinsurance and network status.

This is the hospital's facility fee for the outpatient procedure. The surgeon and anesthesia are billed separately.

Coverage: 824 of the 5,419 hospitals in the CMS roster have an identity-verified price file with this procedure in our data. It is not a random sample, and a hospital missing here has not been judged non-compliant — we may simply not have its file yet. 42 of these 824 hospital files were more than 12 months old at extraction — hospitals must update yearly; we keep the figures and say so rather than hide them.

By insurance type

Insurance type	Hospitals	Median	Middle half	× Medicare
Commercial (plan type not stated)	468	$5,584	$3,009 – $8,308	1.7×
PPO	488	$5,718	$3,343 – $9,437	1.7×
HMO	337	$4,769	$3,111 – $7,764	1.4×
EPO	61	$6,225	$3,838 – $7,924	1.9×
POS	35	$4,006	$3,257 – $9,130	1.2×
ACA Marketplace	330	$5,003	$3,685 – $6,225	1.5×
Medicare Advantage	423	$3,201	$2,822 – $3,485	1.0×
Medicare (as listed)	470	$3,310	$3,088 – $3,558	1.0×
Medicaid	451	$1,970	$963 – $2,908	0.6×
Workers' comp	55	$4,019	$1,985 – $5,532	1.2×

Plan types are grouped from each hospital's plan names. Each figure is a median of hospital-level medians; types with fewer than 20 hospitals are left out.

By state

State	Hospitals	Median	Middle half	× Medicare	Median cash
Alabama	11	$2,918	$2,434 – $3,014	0.9×	$7,497
Arizona	11	$2,052	$2,052 – $2,744	0.6×	$9,299
Arkansas	8	$3,097	$2,950 – $3,381	0.9×	$6,386
California	35	$4,188	$3,891 – $6,513	1.3×	$4,187
Florida	34	$3,613	$3,588 – $4,629	1.1×	$2,375
Georgia	21	$5,678	$3,584 – $5,849	1.7×	$9,809
Hawaii	7	$3,212	$3,180 – $3,554	1.0×	$471
Idaho	9	$656	$472 – $5,502	0.2×	$1,299
Illinois	22	$3,521	$3,480 – $4,071	1.1×	$2,790
Indiana	20	$3,901	$1,508 – $5,555	1.2×	$1,335
Iowa	26	$1,228	$953 – $3,023	0.4×	$1,720
Kansas	17	$3,052	$516 – $4,508	0.9×	$3,823
Kentucky	23	$3,194	$3,003 – $4,579	1.0×	$1,961
Louisiana	16	$3,167	$1,764 – $4,675	0.9×	$2,563
Maine	5	$3,046	$757 – $3,235	0.9×	$1,268
Massachusetts	6	$3,430	$3,357 – $3,784	1.0×	$10,994
Michigan	25	$2,839	$678 – $3,353	0.8×	$1,800
Minnesota	21	$3,245	$3,121 – $3,407	1.0×	$1,451
Mississippi	12	$3,080	$2,955 – $3,735	0.9×	$6,609
Missouri	22	$3,215	$2,795 – $3,340	1.0×	$7,544
Montana	6	$883	$652 – $1,548	0.3×	$1,663
Nebraska	24	$3,041	$1,046 – $3,642	0.9×	$4,454
Nevada	6	$2,187	$2,187 – $2,187	0.7×	$3,559
New Hampshire	6	$5,484	$4,345 – $6,255	1.6×	—
New Jersey	19	$6,205	$3,801 – $6,384	1.9×	$5,110
New Mexico	12	$3,536	$3,332 – $7,529	1.1×	$2,077
New York	34	$3,839	$3,391 – $4,218	1.1×	$3,828
North Carolina	15	$3,159	$3,052 – $3,219	0.9×	$8,105
Ohio	48	$3,559	$3,108 – $7,642	1.1×	$17,673
Oklahoma	22	$3,480	$3,046 – $5,801	1.0×	$6,667
Oregon	16	$6,892	$3,632 – $8,887	2.1×	$1,817
Pennsylvania	46	$3,117	$2,042 – $3,478	0.9×	$3,218
South Carolina	12	$6,044	$4,305 – $12,038	1.8×	$3,614
South Dakota	5	$3,705	$3,342 – $10,775	1.1×	$11,101
Tennessee	16	$3,111	$3,103 – $3,250	0.9×	$5,800
Texas	85	$3,315	$1,843 – $3,819	1.0×	$3,310
Utah	13	$3,644	$3,643 – $6,225	1.1×	—
Vermont	5	$2,066	$1,087 – $3,112	0.6×	$1,507
Virginia	14	$6,356	$4,975 – $8,180	1.9×	—
Washington	14	$1,885	$576 – $4,460	0.6×	$1,475
West Virginia	5	$2,900	$410 – $3,245	0.9×	$8,476
Wisconsin	26	$4,092	$1,570 – $7,829	1.2×	$2,659

middle half of hospitalsstate medianMedicare rate · a dotted end means the range runs past $10,000

States with at least 5 hospitals in our data (42 states). 8 smaller states are counted in the national figures but not listed — a median of two or three hospitals says more about those hospitals than about the state.

Get the data

Hospital-level and insurer-level rates for this procedure are in the full dataset. A free three-procedure sample (brain MRI, head CT, diagnostic colonoscopy) is open under CC BY 4.0: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23199844 · Kaggle.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a knee arthroscopy with cartilage removal cost in the US?: Across 824 hospitals that publish federally required price files, the median negotiated rate is $3,378, and the middle half of hospitals fall between $2,696 and $4,553. Self-pay cash prices have a median of $3,745 across the 359 hospitals that list one. What you pay out of pocket depends on your deductible, coinsurance and network.
Why do Knee Arthroscopy prices vary so much?: Each hospital negotiates separately with each insurer. In these files the priciest tenth of hospitals negotiated more than 10.9 times what the cheapest tenth did, and state medians run from $656 in Idaho to $6,892 in Oregon.
Is the cash price cheaper than using insurance?: Sometimes. At 105 of the 359 hospitals that list a cash price (29%), it is lower than that hospital's own median negotiated rate. If you have a high deductible, ask the hospital for its self-pay price before you book.
What is the Medicare rate shown here?: $3,343 is the CMS national outpatient (OPPS) payment rate for this service (July 2026). We show it as a government baseline: the national median negotiated rate is 1.0 times it.

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