Laparoscopic Inguinal Hernia Repair Cost
Lap ing hernia repair init
$6,601Hospital 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 $3,146 on the Medicare allowed amount for laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair. 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 laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair 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 49650
Work is about 49% of the office total RVU; practice expense is about 38%. 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: $424.19. Hospital (facility) physician rate: $424.19.
Medicare patients typically owe 20% of the allowed amount after the Part B deductible — about $85 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 Laparoscopic Inguinal Hernia Repair?
Laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair fixes a groin hernia, a weakness where abdominal contents bulge through the muscle wall, using a camera and instruments through small incisions, almost always reinforced with surgical mesh. It is a common elective operation chosen when the bulge causes pain or grows. Under general anesthesia the repair takes under an hour for one side, and most patients go home the same day and resume light activity within days.
What Affects the Cost
- –Repairing both sides during one operation, common because the laparoscope can see both groins, is billed with an additional code and raises the fee, though it is cheaper than two separate surgeries.
- –The mesh implant is part of the facility charge and varies by product.
- –Freestanding surgery centers usually beat hospital outpatient departments on the facility fee by a wide margin.
- –General anesthesia is required for laparoscopic repair and is billed separately by time; open repair under local anesthesia can be a cheaper alternative in some patients.
- –Robotic-assisted repair, increasingly common, can carry higher facility charges without a clearly better outcome for routine hernias.
How It Is Billed
CPT 49650 covers the surgeon's fee for a laparoscopic repair of an initial inguinal hernia on one side; a recurrent hernia or a bilateral repair uses different or additional codes. A 90-day global period bundles routine surgeon follow-up into the fee. The mesh is billed within the facility charge rather than by the surgeon, and anesthesia is always a separate professional claim for this general-anesthesia procedure.
Insurance & Coverage Notes
Repair of a symptomatic hernia is covered by Medicare and commercial plans, with prior authorization frequently required for the elective procedure; watchful waiting is a legitimate option for small painless hernias, and some insurers ask about symptoms before approving. Cost sharing follows your normal surgical benefits: deductible plus coinsurance up to your out-of-pocket maximum. Because this is elective, you have time to compare in-network surgeons and facility prices, and this operation shows some of the widest facility price spreads of any common surgery.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Do I need surgery now, or is watchful waiting reasonable for my hernia?
- 2.Will you check and repair the other side too, and how is that billed?
- 3.What is the facility fee difference between the surgery center and hospital options you use?
- 4.Is robotic assistance planned, and does it change what I pay?
- 5.Which mesh will you use and is there any additional charge tied to it?
Laparoscopic Inguinal Hernia Repair (CPT 49650): questions
The 2026 national Medicare physician rate for CPT 49650 is $424.19 in an office and $424.19 in a hospital. Enter a ZIP code to apply the geographic adjustment for your locality.
For CPT 49650 the office and hospital physician rates are essentially the same ($424.19). The hospital will still usually add a separate facility fee that this page does not show.
Laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair fixes a groin hernia, a weakness where abdominal contents bulge through the muscle wall, using a camera and instruments through small incisions, almost always reinforced with surgical mesh. It is a common elective operation chosen when the bulge causes pain or grows. Under general anesthesia the repair takes under an hour for one side, and most patients go home the same day and resume light activity within days. CMS bills it as “Lap ing hernia repair init.”
Not on its own. $424.19 is the physician allowed amount. Medicare also pays the facility, which takes the total to about $6,601 in a hospital outpatient department or about $3,455 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.