Skin Biopsy (Punch) Cost in Louisiana
Punch bx skin single lesion
$453Hospital 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
Louisiana Medicare physician rate (2026)
-6.4% vs nationalAverage of 2 localities. Office range $110.63–$116.27.
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 $324 on the Medicare allowed amount for skin biopsy (punch). Ask whether your procedure can be done at an ambulatory surgery centre.
This is Medicare's separate payment to the facility on top of the physician's fee. Medicare allowed amounts are not what an uninsured patient is charged, and not a quote. Private plans typically allow more.
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 skin biopsy (punch) 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 $75.93.
National vs Louisiana
Where Louisiana ranks for this CPT
CPT 11104 by Louisiana locality
| Locality | Office |
|---|---|
| new orleans | $116.27 |
| rest of louisiana | $110.63 |
PE GPCI ranges from 0.885 to 0.941 in Louisiana. That index is why the same CPT is not one price statewide.
Skin Biopsy (Punch) 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: A punch biopsy uses a small round cutting tool, usually 2 to 6 millimeters across, to remove a full-thickness core of skin down through the deeper layers. Dermatologists choose it over a shave when they need to see the entire depth of the skin, for example to evaluate a rash, a suspected melanoma, or an inflammatory condition. After a numbing injection, the punch takes under a minute, and the small hole is typically closed with one or two stitches that come out in one to two weeks.
What Is Skin Biopsy (Punch)?
A punch biopsy uses a small round cutting tool, usually 2 to 6 millimeters across, to remove a full-thickness core of skin down through the deeper layers. Dermatologists choose it over a shave when they need to see the entire depth of the skin, for example to evaluate a rash, a suspected melanoma, or an inflammatory condition. After a numbing injection, the punch takes under a minute, and the small hole is typically closed with one or two stitches that come out in one to two weeks.
What Affects the Cost
- –The separate pathology fee for processing and reading the full-thickness specimen is often the largest single charge on the bill.
- –Additional punches at the same visit are billed with add-on code 11105 for each extra lesion.
- –Because punch sites are usually sutured, a suture removal or wound check visit may generate its own charge if done as a distinct appointment.
- –Rash workups sometimes require special immunofluorescence or extra stains at the lab, which increases the pathology bill.
- –A biopsy done in a hospital-based clinic carries a facility fee on top of the physician charge.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Why a punch rather than a shave biopsy, and does the choice change the cost?
- 2.Is my suture removal visit included, or billed separately?
- 3.Which lab reads the specimen and is it in network for my plan?
- 4.If special stains are needed for my rash, what extra lab charges should I expect?
- 5.How many sites do you plan to biopsy today, and what is the add-on charge per site?
Other featured procedures in Louisiana
Skin Biopsy (Punch) in other states
Skin Biopsy (Punch) in Louisiana: questions
The 2026 Medicare physician office rate for CPT 11104 averages $113.45 across 2 Louisiana localities, from $110.63 in REST OF LOUISIANA to $116.27 in NEW ORLEANS. The hospital physician rate averages $37.52. Enter a ZIP for the exact locality.
Yes. CMS splits Louisiana into 2 payment localities. For this CPT the office physician fee spans $5.64 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 $23 for the office physician line or $8 for the hospital physician line in Louisiana. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $113.45 is only the physician's share. Adding Medicare's facility payment brings the total to about $453 in a hospital outpatient department, or about $130 at an ambulatory surgery centre. Anesthesia, pathology and other codes billed the same day are extra. Louisiana ranks #14 of 51 states on the physician line (6% below the national office rate of $121.25).