Nuclear Stress Test Cost in Arizona
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$1,751Hospital 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
Arizona Medicare physician rate (2026)
-2.8% vs nationalSingle statewide locality.
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 $603 on the Medicare allowed amount for nuclear stress test. Ask whether your procedure can be done at an ambulatory surgery centre.
This is Medicare's separate payment to the facility on top of the physician's fee. Medicare allowed amounts are not what an uninsured patient is charged, and not a quote. Private plans typically allow more.
Your ZIP in Arizona
Check your ZIP code for local figures across Arizona, from metro Phoenix and Tucson to Flagstaff, Yuma, Prescott, and the rural stretches of the north and southeast.
What nuclear stress test costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in Arizona 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.
National vs Arizona
Where Arizona ranks for this CPT
Nuclear Stress Test and how Arizona is priced
CMS prices all of Arizona through one statewide locality, so Phoenix, Tucson, and the rural counties share a single set of geographic adjustment factors. The state's indices land close to the national average, which makes Arizona a useful benchmark when comparing procedure prices across the country. Because the locality is statewide, the rapid growth of metro Phoenix does not by itself change what Medicare approves there relative to Flagstaff or Yuma. Differences patients notice tend to come from the billing setting and local market conditions, not from the fee schedule.
Arizona has one of the largest Medicare populations in the country thanks to decades of retiree migration, and its winter snowbird influx means demand for care swings by season. Phoenix and Tucson offer deep specialist markets, while much of northern and southeastern Arizona relies on smaller hospitals and long drives for advanced care. Competition among large systems in the Valley gives Phoenix-area patients more room to shop than most rural residents have.
This procedure: A nuclear stress test (SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging) shows how well blood reaches your heart muscle at rest versus under stress, revealing blocked arteries. A small amount of radioactive tracer is injected, a special camera images the heart at rest, then you exercise on a treadmill or receive a medication that mimics exercise, and imaging repeats. Plan for a half day; the multiple imaging sessions and waiting periods make it one of the longest routine cardiac tests.
What Is Nuclear Stress Test?
A nuclear stress test (SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging) shows how well blood reaches your heart muscle at rest versus under stress, revealing blocked arteries. A small amount of radioactive tracer is injected, a special camera images the heart at rest, then you exercise on a treadmill or receive a medication that mimics exercise, and imaging repeats. Plan for a half day; the multiple imaging sessions and waiting periods make it one of the longest routine cardiac tests.
What Affects the Cost
- –The radioactive tracer is a significant supply cost billed alongside the imaging, and tracer prices fluctuate with supply shortages.
- –Pharmacologic stress agents, used for patients who cannot exercise, are expensive drugs billed as additional lines.
- –Hospital outpatient cardiology departments charge substantially more than office-based nuclear labs.
- –Abnormal results commonly lead to cardiac catheterization, a much larger downstream expense.
- –The supervising cardiologist's stress supervision fee and the imaging interpretation fee are separate professional charges.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Has prior authorization been approved, and did my insurer suggest a cheaper test first?
- 2.Would a stress echocardiogram or exercise ECG answer the question for me at lower cost?
- 3.What do the tracer and any stress medication add to the bill?
- 4.Is this being done in an office-based lab or a hospital department, and what is the price at each?
- 5.If the result is abnormal, what is the next test and its typical cost?
Other featured procedures in Arizona
Nuclear Stress Test in other states
Nuclear Stress Test in Arizona: questions
Arizona is a single Medicare locality for this fee schedule. The 2026 physician rate for CPT 78452 is $415.75 in an office and $415.75 in a hospital, statewide. A ZIP lookup still confirms the locality mapping.
Not on the physician fee schedule. Arizona uses one locality, so the Medicare physician rate is the same from one end of the state to the other. What still changes is site of service (office vs hospital) and any facility fee the hospital bills on its own claim.
After the Part B deductible, coinsurance is usually 20% of the allowed amount: about $83 for the office physician line or $83 for the hospital physician line in Arizona. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $415.75 is only the physician's share. Adding Medicare's facility payment brings the total to about $1,751 in a hospital outpatient department, or about $1,147 at an ambulatory surgery centre. Anesthesia, pathology and other codes billed the same day are extra. Arizona ranks #24 of 51 states on the physician line (3% below the national office rate of $427.87).