Knee Arthroscopy Cost in California
Arthrs kne srg mnisectmy m/l
$3,859Hospital 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
California Medicare physician rate (2026)
+6.0% vs nationalAverage of 29 localities. Office range $520.96–$625.33.
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 $1,698 on the Medicare allowed amount for knee arthroscopy. 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.
Your ZIP in California
A ZIP-level lookup matters more in California than in any other state; compare your area, whether that is the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, the Central Valley, or the rural north.
What knee arthroscopy costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in California 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 California
Where California ranks for this CPT
CPT 29881 by California locality
| Locality | Office |
|---|---|
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (san benito cnty) | $625.33 |
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (santa clara cnty) | $618.83 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (marin cnty) | $610.61 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (san francisco/san mateo/alameda/contra costa cnty) | $609.02 |
| napa | $583.49 |
| vallejo | $581.19 |
| santa rosa-petaluma | $555.63 |
| los angeles-long beach-anaheim (los angeles/orange cnty) | $553.33 |
| santa cruz-watsonville | $550.45 |
| san diego-chula vista-carlsbad | $548.23 |
| oxnard-thousand oaks-ventura | $548.19 |
| sacramento-roseville-folsom | $541.39 |
| santa maria-santa barbara | $540.28 |
| salinas | $539.29 |
| riverside-san bernardino-ontario | $536.01 |
| san luis obispo-paso robles | $531.28 |
| bakersfield | $524.83 |
| el centro | $521.19 |
| chico | $520.96 |
| fresno | $520.96 |
| hanford-corcoran | $520.96 |
| madera | $520.96 |
| merced | $520.96 |
| modesto | $520.96 |
| redding | $520.96 |
| stockton | $520.96 |
| visalia | $520.96 |
| yuba city | $520.96 |
| rest of california | $520.96 |
PE GPCI ranges from 1.096 to 1.442 in California. That index is why the same CPT is not one price statewide.
Knee Arthroscopy and how California is priced
California is the most finely divided state in the Medicare fee schedule, with roughly thirty payment localities drawn around metropolitan statistical areas after CMS reformed the state's locality map. The San Francisco Bay Area carries some of the highest geographic adjustments in the nation, with San Francisco, San Jose, and the East Bay each priced separately, while Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and Sacramento have their own localities at somewhat lower levels. Rural and inland counties fall into lower-cost localities, so the same procedure can carry meaningfully different Medicare-approved amounts within a single day's drive. No other state shows this much in-state variation on the fee schedule itself.
California's markets differ sharply: the Bay Area combines high wages with heavily consolidated hospital systems, Los Angeles offers enormous choice across a sprawling region, and the Central Valley and far north face genuine access shortages. Where you are treated within the state matters more here than almost anywhere else in the country. Academic medical centers in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento handle much of the complex referral care.
This procedure: Knee arthroscopy with meniscectomy is keyhole surgery in which the surgeon inserts a small camera into the knee and trims away the torn portion of the meniscus, the cartilage shock absorber between the bones. It treats meniscal tears causing pain, catching, or locking. The procedure takes 30 to 60 minutes under general or regional anesthesia at an outpatient surgery center, and most patients walk the same day and return to desk work within days.
What Is Knee Arthroscopy?
Knee arthroscopy with meniscectomy is keyhole surgery in which the surgeon inserts a small camera into the knee and trims away the torn portion of the meniscus, the cartilage shock absorber between the bones. It treats meniscal tears causing pain, catching, or locking. The procedure takes 30 to 60 minutes under general or regional anesthesia at an outpatient surgery center, and most patients walk the same day and return to desk work within days.
What Affects the Cost
- –Ambulatory surgery centers typically charge far less for this procedure than hospital outpatient departments.
- –A meniscus repair with sutures, if the tear pattern allows one, is a different code with a longer recovery and different pricing than simple trimming.
- –The pre-operative MRI that diagnosed the tear is part of the true episode cost and may still be working through your deductible.
- –Post-operative physical therapy visits, often 4 to 12 of them, are billed per visit on top of the surgery.
- –Anesthesia bills separately, and a regional nerve block for pain control adds a line item.
- –Any additional work done through the scope at the same time, such as cartilage smoothing, can add or change surgical codes.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Is my tear traumatic or degenerative, and would a course of physical therapy first be a reasonable and cheaper option?
- 2.Will this be a meniscectomy or a repair, and how do the costs and recovery differ?
- 3.Can we book this at a freestanding surgery center rather than the hospital?
- 4.What other procedures might you perform once you are inside the knee, and how would they change the bill?
- 5.How many therapy visits will I need afterward and at what cost per visit?
Other featured procedures in California
Knee Arthroscopy in other states
Knee Arthroscopy in California: questions
The 2026 Medicare physician office rate for CPT 29881 averages $546.52 across 29 California localities, from $520.96 in CHICO to $625.33 in SAN JOSE-SUNNYVALE-SANTA CLARA (SAN BENITO CNTY). The hospital physician rate averages $546.52. Enter a ZIP for the exact locality.
Yes. CMS splits California into 29 payment localities. For this CPT the office physician fee spans $104.37 from the lowest to highest locality. A ZIP-level lookup matters more in California than in any other state; compare your area, whether that is the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, the Central Valley, or the rural north.
After the Part B deductible, coinsurance is usually 20% of the allowed amount: about $109 for the office physician line or $109 for the hospital physician line in California. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $546.52 is only the physician's share. Adding Medicare's facility payment brings the total to about $3,859 in a hospital outpatient department, or about $2,161 at an ambulatory surgery centre. Anesthesia, pathology and other codes billed the same day are extra. California ranks #43 of 51 states on the physician line (6% above the national office rate of $515.71).