Office Visit (New, High) Cost in California
Office o/p new hi 60 min
$255.27California physician fee2026 Medicare 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
California Medicare physician rate (2026)
+7.8% vs nationalAverage of 29 localities. Office range $243.58–$291.78.
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 office visit (new, high) 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. In California the office and hospital physician lines for this CPT differ by $90.50.
National vs California
Where California ranks for this CPT
CPT 99205 by California locality
| Locality | Office |
|---|---|
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (san benito cnty) | $291.78 |
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (santa clara cnty) | $290.11 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (marin cnty) | $285.65 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (san francisco/san mateo/alameda/contra costa cnty) | $285.24 |
| napa | $272.57 |
| vallejo | $271.98 |
| santa rosa-petaluma | $259.34 |
| los angeles-long beach-anaheim (los angeles/orange cnty) | $257.31 |
| santa cruz-watsonville | $256.88 |
| san diego-chula vista-carlsbad | $255.96 |
| oxnard-thousand oaks-ventura | $255.19 |
| sacramento-roseville-folsom | $253.03 |
| santa maria-santa barbara | $252.42 |
| salinas | $252.01 |
| san luis obispo-paso robles | $248.22 |
| riverside-san bernardino-ontario | $247.51 |
| bakersfield | $244.69 |
| el centro | $243.64 |
| chico | $243.58 |
| fresno | $243.58 |
| hanford-corcoran | $243.58 |
| madera | $243.58 |
| merced | $243.58 |
| modesto | $243.58 |
| redding | $243.58 |
| stockton | $243.58 |
| visalia | $243.58 |
| yuba city | $243.58 |
| rest of california | $243.58 |
PE GPCI ranges from 1.096 to 1.442 in California. That index is why the same CPT is not one price statewide.
Office Visit (New, High) 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: This is the highest-level new-patient office visit, reserved for genuinely complex first encounters: multiple serious conditions, a diagnosis that could threaten life or function, or decisions about major interventions. Billed by time, it means 60 to 74 minutes with the clinician on the visit date. Typical examples include a first oncology consultation, a complicated multi-system workup, or a new patient with several unstable chronic diseases.
What Is Office Visit (New, High)?
This is the highest-level new-patient office visit, reserved for genuinely complex first encounters: multiple serious conditions, a diagnosis that could threaten life or function, or decisions about major interventions. Billed by time, it means 60 to 74 minutes with the clinician on the visit date. Typical examples include a first oncology consultation, a complicated multi-system workup, or a new patient with several unstable chronic diseases.
What Affects the Cost
- –It is the most expensive standard office visit code, and practices reserve it for their longest, most involved new consultations.
- –The specialists who bill it most, oncologists, rheumatologists, complex-care internists, tend to practice in hospital systems where facility fees compound the professional charge.
- –Visits this complex almost always launch expensive diagnostics: advanced imaging, biopsies, or specialty labs, each billed separately.
- –Prolonged-service add-on codes attach beyond 74 minutes, extending the charge further.
- –Second-opinion consultations at academic centers often bill at this level with academic-center pricing.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.What is the charge for this highest-level consultation, including any facility fee?
- 2.Does my plan need a referral on file before this visit?
- 3.Which of the tests and treatments you are recommending need prior authorization?
- 4.Is every provider involved in my workup, radiology, pathology, labs, in my network?
- 5.If this is a second opinion, does my plan have a program that covers it in full?
Other featured procedures in California
Office Visit (New, High) in other states
Office Visit (New, High) in California: questions
The 2026 Medicare physician office rate for CPT 99205 averages $255.27 across 29 California localities, from $243.58 in CHICO to $291.78 in SAN JOSE-SUNNYVALE-SANTA CLARA (SAN BENITO CNTY). The hospital physician rate averages $164.77. Enter a ZIP for the exact locality.
Yes. CMS splits California into 29 payment localities. For this CPT the office physician fee spans $48.20 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 $51 for the office physician line or $33 for the hospital physician line in California. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $255.27 is the Medicare physician allowed amount for CPT 99205. Anesthesia, facility fees, implants, and other CPT codes billed the same day are extra. California ranks #47 of 51 states on this physician line (8% above the national office rate of $236.81).