How Much Does Orthopedic Hardware Removal Cost in California?
Removal of implant deep
$3,362Hospital outpatient total2026 Medicare, physician + facilityUnder 2026 Medicare rates, orthopedic hardware removal costs up to about $3,362 in total at a hospital outpatient department or about $1,643 at an ambulatory surgery center, counting both the physician and the facility (national rates). The physician's own fee in California averages $415, from $397 to $472 across 29 Medicare localities.
- ✓Your ZIP's wage-adjusted hospital and surgery center 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)
+10.2% vs nationalAverage of 29 localities. Office range $657.45–$814.76.
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 center over a hospital saves about $1,719 on the Medicare allowed amount for orthopedic hardware removal. Ask whether your procedure can be done at an ambulatory surgery center.
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 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 orthopedic hardware removal 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.
For example 90001.
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 center 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 $281.00.
National vs California
Where California ranks for this CPT
CPT 20680 by California locality
| Locality | Office |
|---|---|
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (san benito cnty) | $814.76 |
| san jose-sunnyvale-santa clara (santa clara cnty) | $809.84 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (marin cnty) | $796.24 |
| san francisco-oakland-berkeley (san francisco/san mateo/alameda/contra costa cnty) | $795.04 |
| napa | $754.74 |
| vallejo | $753.01 |
| santa rosa-petaluma | $713.10 |
| santa cruz-watsonville | $706.13 |
| los angeles-long beach-anaheim (los angeles/orange cnty) | $701.66 |
| san diego-chula vista-carlsbad | $700.44 |
| oxnard-thousand oaks-ventura | $697.28 |
| sacramento-roseville-folsom | $688.11 |
| santa maria-santa barbara | $687.76 |
| salinas | $685.53 |
| san luis obispo-paso robles | $674.76 |
| riverside-san bernardino-ontario | $668.87 |
| bakersfield | $660.43 |
| el centro | $657.63 |
| chico | $657.45 |
| fresno | $657.45 |
| hanford-corcoran | $657.45 |
| madera | $657.45 |
| merced | $657.45 |
| modesto | $657.45 |
| redding | $657.45 |
| stockton | $657.45 |
| visalia | $657.45 |
| yuba city | $657.45 |
| rest of california | $657.45 |
PE GPCI ranges from 1.096 to 1.442 in California. That index is why the same CPT is not one price statewide.
Orthopedic Hardware Removal 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: CPT 20680 is the removal of deep orthopedic hardware, such as a rod, plate, screws or pins that were placed to fix a broken bone. Hardware is taken out when it causes pain or irritation, becomes infected, or limits movement, and sometimes after a fracture has fully healed in younger patients. It is usually an outpatient operation under anesthesia, and the size of the job depends on the implant: removing a long rod from the thigh bone is a bigger operation than taking out a few screws from the ankle.
What Is Orthopedic Hardware Removal?
CPT 20680 is the removal of deep orthopedic hardware, such as a rod, plate, screws or pins that were placed to fix a broken bone. Hardware is taken out when it causes pain or irritation, becomes infected, or limits movement, and sometimes after a fracture has fully healed in younger patients. It is usually an outpatient operation under anesthesia, and the size of the job depends on the implant: removing a long rod from the thigh bone is a bigger operation than taking out a few screws from the ankle.
What Affects the Cost
- –The size and location of the implant drive operating time: removing an intramedullary rod from the femur takes longer than removing a small ankle plate.
- –Hardware removed through separate incisions can be billed more than once in the same operation.
- –Anesthesia is billed separately by the anesthesia provider.
- –Surgery centers typically have lower facility fees than hospital outpatient departments.
- –If infection is found, cultures, antibiotics and sometimes a hospital stay add to the total.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.What is causing my symptoms, and is removal likely to help?
- 2.Is all of the hardware coming out, and through how many incisions?
- 3.Will this be done at a surgery center or a hospital?
- 4.Will I need crutches, a brace or physical therapy afterward?
- 5.Is the anesthesia group in my network?
Other featured procedures in California
Orthopedic Hardware Removal in other states
Orthopedic Hardware Removal in California: questions
Under 2026 Medicare rates, orthopedic hardware removal costs up to about $3,362 in total at a hospital outpatient department or about $1,643 at an ambulatory surgery center, counting both the physician and the facility (national rates). The physician's own fee in California averages $415, from $397 to $472 across 29 Medicare localities. Enter a ZIP for the exact California locality.
Yes. CMS splits California into 29 payment localities. For this CPT the office physician fee spans $157.31 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 $139 for the office physician line or $83 for the hospital physician line in California. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $415.46 is only the physician's share. Adding Medicare's facility payment brings the total to up to about $3,362 in a hospital outpatient department, or about $1,643 at an ambulatory surgery center. Anesthesia, pathology and other codes billed the same day are extra. California ranks #48 of 51 states on the physician line (10% above the national office rate of $631.95).