MRI Knee Cost in Arkansas
Mri jnt of lwr extre w/o dye
$448Hospital 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
Arkansas Medicare physician rate (2026)
-11.6% 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 $112 on the Medicare allowed amount for mri knee. Ask whether your procedure can be done at an ambulatory surgery centre.
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.
Your ZIP in Arkansas
Try a ZIP lookup to see rates for your corner of Arkansas, whether around Little Rock, the fast-growing Fayetteville and Springdale corridor, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, or the rural Delta.
What mri knee costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in Arkansas 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 Arkansas
Where Arkansas ranks for this CPT
MRI Knee and how Arkansas is priced
One payment locality covers the whole of Arkansas, and its geographic indices are among the lowest CMS publishes, so Medicare-approved amounts here sit near the bottom of the national range. A clinic visit in Little Rock is priced with the same adjustments as one in the Delta or the Ozarks. For consumers this means the statewide numbers on this site are a close match for almost any Arkansas address. The bigger price swings come from whether a procedure is billed in a hospital department or an independent office.
Little Rock is the state's referral hub, home to its academic medical center and the densest concentration of specialists, with Northwest Arkansas growing quickly as a second center of care. Large parts of the Delta and the mountain counties have limited local options, so traveling for procedures is routine. Lower area wages also mean cash prices for care in Arkansas often undercut national averages.
This procedure: A knee MRI without contrast (the lower extremity joint MRI code) shows the menisci, ligaments including the ACL, cartilage, and bone marrow, none of which appear on X-ray. It is the definitive test for suspected meniscus tears and ligament injuries. You lie on your back with the knee in a small coil for 20 to 40 minutes of painless but noisy scanning, and results typically reach your doctor within a couple of days.
What Is MRI Knee?
A knee MRI without contrast (the lower extremity joint MRI code) shows the menisci, ligaments including the ACL, cartilage, and bone marrow, none of which appear on X-ray. It is the definitive test for suspected meniscus tears and ligament injuries. You lie on your back with the knee in a small coil for 20 to 40 minutes of painless but noisy scanning, and results typically reach your doctor within a couple of days.
What Affects the Cost
- –The hospital versus freestanding center price gap for knee MRI is large and well documented; this is a scan worth shopping.
- –Insurer authorization rules often require an X-ray and a trial of conservative care first, adding upstream visits.
- –A confirmed meniscus or ligament tear frequently leads to arthroscopy, so the MRI often begins a bigger spending episode.
- –In patients over about 50, MRI often shows incidental degenerative findings that can prompt further, sometimes unnecessary, care.
- –The radiologist's interpretation fee is a distinct component of the price.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Has my insurer approved this scan, and does my chart show the X-ray and conservative care they require?
- 2.What is the all-in price at the freestanding centers near me?
- 3.Given my age, could therapy first make this MRI unnecessary?
- 4.Is the authorization tied to a specific facility?
- 5.If the MRI shows a tear, what are the typical next steps and their costs?
Other featured procedures in Arkansas
MRI Knee in other states
MRI Knee in Arkansas: questions
Arkansas is a single Medicare locality for this fee schedule. The 2026 physician rate for CPT 73721 is $180.77 in an office and $180.77 in a hospital, statewide. A ZIP lookup still confirms the locality mapping.
Not on the physician fee schedule. Arkansas 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 $36 for the office physician line or $36 for the hospital physician line in Arkansas. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $180.77 is only the physician's share. Adding Medicare's facility payment brings the total to about $448 in a hospital outpatient department, or about $336 at an ambulatory surgery centre. Anesthesia, pathology and other codes billed the same day are extra. Arkansas ranks #1 of 51 states on the physician line (12% below the national office rate of $204.41).