Cesarean Delivery (Global) Cost
Cesarean delivery
$2,473.34Medicare physician fee2026 national office rate- ✓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)
Get the rate for your ZIP
CMS adjusts this CPT by locality. A five-digit ZIP is enough — no account, no insurance card.
What cesarean delivery (global) 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 59510
Work is about 55% of the office total RVU; practice expense is about 27%. 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: $2,473.34. Hospital (facility) physician rate: $2,473.34.
Medicare patients typically owe 20% of the allowed amount after the Part B deductible — about $495 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 Cesarean Delivery (Global)?
This is the global maternity package for a planned or unplanned cesarean birth: routine prenatal visits, the cesarean delivery, and postpartum care in a single physician fee. A cesarean is major abdominal surgery performed in an operating room under spinal or epidural anesthesia, usually taking under an hour, with the parent awake for the birth. The hospital stay is longer than for a vaginal birth, typically two to four nights, with a six-week surgical recovery at home.
What Affects the Cost
- –Hospital facility charges are substantially higher than for vaginal delivery, driven by operating room time and the longer inpatient stay.
- –The anesthesiologist bills separately for the spinal or epidural and for attending the surgery.
- –The newborn's own hospital account starts at birth, and cesarean deliveries have higher rates of brief NICU observation, which is billed at NICU rates.
- –An assistant surgeon, common in cesareans, may bill an additional professional fee.
- –Prenatal ultrasounds, labs, and any high-risk specialist visits are billed outside the global package.
- –A scheduled cesarean is generally cheaper than one that follows a long, fully billed labor with an epidural already running.
How It Is Billed
CPT 59510 bundles routine prenatal care, the cesarean operation, and postpartum visits into one physician fee billed after delivery; a cesarean after attempted vaginal birth following a prior cesarean has its own code, as does a delivery-only claim if care was split among practices. Not included: hospital facility charges, anesthesia, the assistant surgeon, ultrasounds, labs, and all newborn care. The surgical nature of the code also means post-delivery wound issues within the postpartum period are usually bundled, but new problems can be billed separately.
Insurance & Coverage Notes
Cesarean delivery is covered as an essential maternity benefit; insurers do not distinguish elective repeat cesareans from medically indicated ones for coverage purposes, though your costs are still subject to deductible and out-of-pocket limits, which most families hit in a cesarean year. A pre-labor scheduled cesarean requires no special authorization beyond normal maternity notification at most plans. Confirm the anesthesia group and any assistant surgeon are in network; the No Surprises Act protects against many out-of-network surprise bills at in-network hospitals, but verifying up front avoids the dispute process.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.What are the hospital's facility charges for a cesarean, including the typical length of stay?
- 2.Will an assistant surgeon be present, and do they bill separately under my plan?
- 3.Is the anesthesiology group in network, and what does the spinal or epidural cost?
- 4.How likely is NICU observation for my situation, and how would that be billed for the baby?
- 5.If I am attempting vaginal birth first, how do charges stack if it converts to a cesarean?
Cesarean Delivery (Global) (CPT 59510): questions
The 2026 national Medicare physician rate for CPT 59510 is $2,473.34 in an office and $2,473.34 in a hospital. Enter a ZIP code to apply the geographic adjustment for your locality.
For CPT 59510 the office and hospital physician rates are essentially the same ($2,473.34). The hospital will still usually add a separate facility fee that this page does not show.
This is the global maternity package for a planned or unplanned cesarean birth: routine prenatal visits, the cesarean delivery, and postpartum care in a single physician fee. A cesarean is major abdominal surgery performed in an operating room under spinal or epidural anesthesia, usually taking under an hour, with the parent awake for the birth. The hospital stay is longer than for a vaginal birth, typically two to four nights, with a six-week surgical recovery at home. CMS bills it as “Cesarean delivery.”
No. $2,473.34 is the physician allowed amount. Anesthesia, facility fees, implants, imaging interpretation billed under a different code, and pathology are separate when they apply. 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.