Office Visit (New, Moderate-High) Cost in Louisiana
Office o/p new mod 45 min
$170.56Louisiana 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
Louisiana Medicare physician rate (2026)
-3.8% vs nationalAverage of 2 localities. Office range $167.53–$173.58.
Your ZIP in Louisiana
Check your ZIP code to see whether New Orleans locality pricing or rest-of-state pricing applies, from the metro area to Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Shreveport, and the rural parishes.
What office visit (new, moderate-high) costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in Louisiana 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 Louisiana the office and hospital physician lines for this CPT differ by $55.20.
National vs Louisiana
Where Louisiana ranks for this CPT
CPT 99204 by Louisiana locality
| Locality | Office |
|---|---|
| new orleans | $173.58 |
| rest of louisiana | $167.53 |
PE GPCI ranges from 0.885 to 0.941 in Louisiana. That index is why the same CPT is not one price statewide.
Office Visit (New, Moderate-High) and how Louisiana is priced
Louisiana is one of the states CMS splits: the New Orleans area has its own payment locality, and the rest of the state, including Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and Lafayette, shares a second. New Orleans carries somewhat higher geographic adjustments, so identical procedures are approved at higher amounts there than elsewhere in the state. The two-locality structure has been stable for years and mirrors the metro's higher wage and rent levels. Everywhere outside greater New Orleans prices off the same rest-of-state factors.
New Orleans remains the state's medical center of gravity, with academic medicine and the deepest specialist bench, while Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lafayette, and Lake Charles anchor their own regions. Rural parishes, especially in the north and along the coast, have limited hospital capacity and refer heavily into the cities. Louisiana's high rates of chronic disease keep demand for procedures strong across the state.
This procedure: This is a new-patient office visit of moderate to high complexity: your first visit to a practice in three years for a problem with real depth, such as multiple symptoms needing workup, a new chronic disease like diabetes, or several interacting conditions. When billed by time it represents 45 to 59 minutes on the visit date. It is the most commonly billed new-patient level in the United States, the default for a substantive first specialist or primary care appointment.
What Is Office Visit (New, Moderate-High)?
This is a new-patient office visit of moderate to high complexity: your first visit to a practice in three years for a problem with real depth, such as multiple symptoms needing workup, a new chronic disease like diabetes, or several interacting conditions. When billed by time it represents 45 to 59 minutes on the visit date. It is the most commonly billed new-patient level in the United States, the default for a substantive first specialist or primary care appointment.
What Affects the Cost
- –As the workhorse new-patient code, it prices well above 99203, and the level is set by the visit's complexity, not by what you expected walking in.
- –Specialist consultations commonly bill at this level, and specialist charge rates exceed primary care for the same code.
- –Diagnostic workups launched at this visit, labs, imaging referrals, and tests, are where the episode's real spending usually begins.
- –Facility fees at hospital-owned clinics inflate this visit substantially compared with independent offices.
- –Prolonged-service add-on codes can stack on top if the visit runs well past an hour.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Does my plan require a referral for this specialist before the visit is covered?
- 2.What is the negotiated or cash price for a level-four new-patient visit here?
- 3.Which tests are you likely to order, and which of those need prior authorization?
- 4.Is there a facility fee because this clinic is hospital-owned?
- 5.If the visit runs long, could additional prolonged-service charges apply?
Other featured procedures in Louisiana
Office Visit (New, Moderate-High) in other states
Office Visit (New, Moderate-High) in Louisiana: questions
The 2026 Medicare physician office rate for CPT 99204 averages $170.56 across 2 Louisiana localities, from $167.53 in REST OF LOUISIANA to $173.58 in NEW ORLEANS. The hospital physician rate averages $115.36. Enter a ZIP for the exact locality.
Yes. CMS splits Louisiana into 2 payment localities. For this CPT the office physician fee spans $6.05 from the lowest to highest locality. Check your ZIP code to see whether New Orleans locality pricing or rest-of-state pricing applies, from the metro area to Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Shreveport, and the rural parishes.
After the Part B deductible, coinsurance is usually 20% of the allowed amount: about $34 for the office physician line or $23 for the hospital physician line in Louisiana. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $170.56 is the Medicare physician allowed amount for CPT 99204. Anesthesia, facility fees, implants, and other CPT codes billed the same day are extra. Louisiana ranks #18 of 51 states on this physician line (4% below the national office rate of $177.36).