Total Knee Replacement Cost
Total knee arthroplasty
$14,276Hospital outpatient total2026 Medicare, physician + facility- ✓Your ZIP's wage-adjusted hospital and surgery centre rates
- ✓Five nearby hospitals by name, with CMS star ratings
- ✓The add-on codes that typically land on the bill
- ✓A word-for-word script for asking for a good-faith estimate
- ✓A private link you can reopen and share
- ✓Everything in the Premium report
- ✓15 nearby hospitals instead of five
- ✓Filled good-faith-estimate request letter
- ✓Bill-negotiation letter
- ✓Printable PDF download
National Medicare physician rate (2026)
What the whole procedure costs
The rate above is the physician’s fee on its own. The facility bills separately, and for most procedures the facility is the larger half of the bill. These are 2026 national Medicare amounts.
Choosing a surgery centre over a hospital saves about $3,724 on the Medicare allowed amount for total knee replacement. Ask whether your procedure can be done at an ambulatory surgery centre.
Medicare pays the hospital a single comprehensive amount for this procedure, covering the facility's share of the encounter including implants and supplies. 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 total knee replacement 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.
One-off payment, no account and no subscription. You get a private link and an email. No medical records and no insurance card, ever.
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 centre 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.
How CMS prices CPT 27447
Work is about 55% of the office total RVU; practice expense is about 33%. 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: $1,159.35. Hospital (facility) physician rate: $1,159.35.
Medicare patients typically owe 20% of the allowed amount after the Part B deductible — about $232 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.
What Is Total Knee Replacement?
Total knee replacement resurfaces the ends of the thigh and shin bones and usually the kneecap with metal and plastic components after arthritis has worn away the cartilage. It is among the most common elective surgeries in the United States. The operation lasts one to two hours under spinal or general anesthesia, and recovery is more demanding than hip replacement: expect several months of dedicated physical therapy to regain bending and strength.
What Affects the Cost
- –Physical therapy is a bigger cost driver here than for almost any other surgery, because knee recovery typically requires more visits over more months.
- –Facility choice, hospital inpatient versus outpatient surgery center, can swing the total by a large margin.
- –The implant system and any patient-specific or robotic-assisted instrumentation add to the facility charge.
- –Nerve blocks for post-operative pain control are billed by anesthesia as separate procedures.
- –A stay in a skilled nursing or inpatient rehab facility, if you cannot go straight home, adds a substantial per-day cost.
- –Manipulation under anesthesia, needed by a minority of patients whose knee stiffens, is an additional procedure with its own charges.
How It Is Billed
CPT 27447 pays the surgeon and includes a 90-day global period, so the operation itself and routine surgeon follow-ups are one professional fee. Everything else is billed separately: the facility fee containing the implant, anesthesia time plus any nerve block, pre-operative clearance, and every physical therapy visit for months afterward. Medicare removed this procedure from its inpatient-only list years ago, so identical surgeries are billed as inpatient or outpatient depending on your recovery plan, with different cost-sharing consequences.
Insurance & Coverage Notes
Coverage requires documented arthritis severity and failed conservative care, and commercial insurers almost universally demand prior authorization; denials for insufficient documented therapy or injections beforehand are common and appealable. Your physical therapy benefit matters as much as your surgical benefit: check how many PT visits your plan allows per year and what each visit costs you. Some employers and insurers offer bundled knee replacement programs at centers of excellence, occasionally with travel included and cost sharing waived.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.How many physical therapy visits will I realistically need, and how many does my plan cover per year?
- 2.Can my surgery be done outpatient, and what is the price difference at each facility you operate in?
- 3.Is prior authorization fully approved, including the conservative treatment documentation?
- 4.Will I get a nerve block, and is the anesthesia group in my network?
- 5.If I need a rehab facility stay instead of going home, what would that cost under my plan?
Total Knee Replacement (CPT 27447): questions
The 2026 national Medicare physician rate for CPT 27447 is $1,159.35 in an office and $1,159.35 in a hospital. Enter a ZIP code to apply the geographic adjustment for your locality.
For CPT 27447 the office and hospital physician rates are essentially the same ($1,159.35). The hospital will still usually add a separate facility fee that this page does not show.
Total knee replacement resurfaces the ends of the thigh and shin bones and usually the kneecap with metal and plastic components after arthritis has worn away the cartilage. It is among the most common elective surgeries in the United States. The operation lasts one to two hours under spinal or general anesthesia, and recovery is more demanding than hip replacement: expect several months of dedicated physical therapy to regain bending and strength. CMS bills it as “Total knee arthroplasty.”
Not on its own. $1,159.35 is the physician allowed amount. Medicare also pays the facility, which takes the total to about $14,276 in a hospital outpatient department or about $10,553 at an ambulatory surgery centre. Anesthesia, pathology and imaging interpretation billed under other codes are separate again. 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.