How Much Does Orthopedic Hardware Removal Cost in Kentucky?
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 Kentucky averages $373.
- ✓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
Kentucky Medicare physician rate (2026)
-7.5% 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 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 Kentucky
Use a ZIP lookup for your area of Kentucky, whether Louisville, Lexington, the northern Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati, Bowling Green, Owensboro, or the Appalachian east.
What orthopedic hardware removal costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in Kentucky 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 40003.
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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 Kentucky the office and hospital physician lines for this CPT differ by $211.12.
National vs Kentucky
Where Kentucky ranks for this CPT
Orthopedic Hardware Removal and how Kentucky is priced
Kentucky's fee schedule runs on one statewide locality, with geographic indices below the national average, so Louisville, Lexington, and the Appalachian east all publish the same Medicare-approved amounts. The uniform locality smooths over a state with sharp internal contrasts, from urban river cities to some of the most rural counties in America. Because the adjustments are identical everywhere, the statewide figures here transfer cleanly to any Kentucky address. Setting of care, office versus hospital outpatient, remains the biggest driver of what a patient actually pays.
Louisville and Lexington host the state's two academic medical centers and absorb referrals from a wide rural hinterland, while northern Kentucky functions as part of the Cincinnati market across the river. Eastern Kentucky's mountain counties face persistent physician shortages and long travel for specialty procedures. For residents along the borders, comparing against Cincinnati, Nashville, or Huntington providers is often worthwhile.
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 Kentucky
Orthopedic Hardware Removal in other states
Orthopedic Hardware Removal in Kentucky: 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 Kentucky averages $373. Kentucky is a single Medicare locality, so the physician rate is the same statewide.
Not on the physician fee schedule. Kentucky 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 $117 for the office physician line or $75 for the hospital physician line in Kentucky. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $373.14 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. Kentucky ranks #10 of 51 states on the physician line (8% below the national office rate of $631.95).