Destruction of Skin Lesion Cost
Destruct premalg lesion
$66.47In-office total2026 Medicare, nationalUnder 2026 Medicare rates, destruction of skin lesion in a doctor's office costs about $66 nationally, with no separate facility fee. In a facility the total is up to about $253 at a hospital outpatient department, because the facility is paid its own rate on top of the physician. A ZIP code adjusts every figure to your area.
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- ✓The add-on codes that typically land on the bill
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National Medicare physician rate (2026)
What it costs in a hospital or surgery center
In a doctor’s office, the office rate above is the whole Medicare payment. When the same procedure is done in a hospital or surgery center, the facility bills its own fee on top of the physician, which is what these totals show. They are 2026 national Medicare amounts.
Medicare may pay the facility separately for this code or package it into another service on the same day, so treat the facility share as an upper bound. Medicare allowed amounts are not what an uninsured patient is charged, and not a quote. Private plans typically allow more.
Get the rate for your ZIP
CMS adjusts this CPT by locality. A five-digit ZIP is enough: no account, no insurance card.
What destruction of skin lesion costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in your area moves the bill more than anything else you control.
Rates for your ZIP, 5 named hospitals with CMS ratings, the add-on codes, and the scheduler script.
For example 90001.
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What these numbers are
Every figure on this page is a 2026 Medicare allowed amount: the physician line comes from the Physician Fee Schedule adjusted by geographic practice-cost indices, and the facility totals come from the CMS hospital outpatient (OPPS) and ambulatory surgery center rates. None of them is a hospital chargemaster price, your insurer's contracted rate, or a quote. Anesthesia, pathology, imaging reads and follow-up care are billed under their own codes when they apply, and an inpatient stay is paid a different way again. For this code the office and hospital physician lines differ by $18.71.
How CMS prices CPT 17000
Work is about 30% of the office total RVU; practice expense is about 67%. Localities with a high PE GPCI move this code more when practice expense is a large share.
Office vs hospital for this code
Office (non-facility) physician rate: $66.47. Hospital (facility) physician rate: $47.76.
Medicare patients typically owe 20% of the allowed amount after the Part B deductible, about $13 for the office physician fee, before any Medigap coverage. That coinsurance does not include a hospital facility fee.
Labeled private-plan and cash ranges on this page are arithmetic multiples of Medicare, not negotiated quotes. Ask the billing office for the CPT code, the site of service, and a good-faith estimate.
Destruction of Skin Lesion cost by state
2026 Medicare office rate for CPT 17000, averaged across each state's localities. Open a state for its locality table and full cost breakdown.
What Is Destruction of Skin Lesion?
This is the destruction, most often by liquid nitrogen freezing, of a single precancerous skin lesion such as an actinic keratosis, the rough scaly patch caused by years of sun exposure. The dermatologist sprays or dabs the lesion for a few seconds; it stings briefly, blisters or crusts over a few days, and then peels away. No anesthesia or downtime is needed, and the whole treatment adds only moments to a skin exam.
What Affects the Cost
- –The code covers only the first lesion; every additional lesion frozen at the same visit is billed under add-on code 17003, and 15 or more lesions switch to code 17004.
- –Many patients need re-treatment at future visits because actinic keratoses recur, so annual cost is a multiple of one session.
- –An office visit charge is often billed alongside the freezing when the clinician also performs a skin exam or addresses other concerns.
- –Alternative treatments for widespread lesions, such as prescription field creams or photodynamic therapy, carry very different price tags worth comparing.
- –Freezing a benign spot like a plain seborrheic keratosis for appearance reasons is usually coded differently and may not be covered at all.
How It Is Billed
CPT 17000 is strictly per-lesion for the first premalignant lesion destroyed; watch your explanation of benefits for 17003 line items multiplying with each additional spot. There is no separate pathology charge because nothing is removed for testing; if the doctor is unsure a lesion is precancerous, a biopsy would be a different code and would add a lab fee. Freezing done during a routine skin check commonly produces both a procedure line and a visit line on the same claim.
Insurance & Coverage Notes
Destruction of actinic keratoses is covered by Medicare and commercial plans as medically necessary because these lesions can progress to squamous cell skin cancer. It is not classified as preventive care, so deductibles and coinsurance apply. Freezing of cosmetic or clearly benign lesions, such as skin tags, is typically excluded or billed to you directly, and offices should tell you in advance when a spot will be treated as cosmetic self-pay.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.How many lesions will you treat today, and what is the charge for each additional one?
- 2.Are any of the spots you plan to freeze considered cosmetic rather than precancerous?
- 3.Will today also be billed as an office visit on top of the freezing?
- 4.If I have many lesions, would a prescription cream or field treatment be more cost-effective than repeated freezing?
- 5.How often should I expect to come back for re-treatment, and what does a typical year of visits cost?
Destruction of Skin Lesion (CPT 17000): questions
Under 2026 Medicare rates, destruction of skin lesion in a doctor's office costs about $66 nationally, with no separate facility fee. In a facility the total is up to about $253 at a hospital outpatient department, because the facility is paid its own rate on top of the physician. A ZIP code adjusts every figure to your area.
Medicare uses a different practice-expense RVU in a facility. For CPT 17000 that produces an office rate of $66.47 and a hospital physician rate of $47.76 (a $18.71 gap). The hospital’s own facility charge is extra and often larger than this entire physician line.
This is the destruction, most often by liquid nitrogen freezing, of a single precancerous skin lesion such as an actinic keratosis, the rough scaly patch caused by years of sun exposure. The dermatologist sprays or dabs the lesion for a few seconds; it stings briefly, blisters or crusts over a few days, and then peels away. No anesthesia or downtime is needed, and the whole treatment adds only moments to a skin exam. CMS bills it as “Destruct premalg lesion.”
In a doctor's office, $66.47 is Medicare's whole national payment: it covers the physician, the room and the supplies, with no separate facility fee. In a hospital outpatient department the physician is paid about $47.76 and the hospital adds its own facility payment, bringing the total to up to about $253. Services billed under other codes, such as lab work, are extra. Private-plan allowed amounts are often higher than Medicare; your deductible and coinsurance still apply.
For cash-pay surgery shopping, use this CPT as the Medicare floor when you compare written quotes. How cash-price shopping works.