Knee Arthroscopy Cost in Minnesota
Arthrs kne srg mnisectmy m/l
$3,859Hospital 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
Minnesota Medicare physician rate (2026)
-5.0% 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 centre over a hospital saves about $1,698 on the Medicare allowed amount for knee arthroscopy. Ask whether your procedure can be done at an ambulatory surgery centre.
Medicare pays the hospital a single comprehensive amount for this procedure, covering the facility's share of the encounter including implants and supplies. Medicare allowed amounts are not what an uninsured patient is charged, and not a quote. Private plans typically allow more.
Your ZIP in Minnesota
Check your ZIP code for your part of Minnesota, whether Minneapolis-St. Paul, Rochester, Duluth, St. Cloud, Mankato, or the farm and lake country beyond.
What knee arthroscopy costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in Minnesota 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.
National vs Minnesota
Where Minnesota ranks for this CPT
Knee Arthroscopy and how Minnesota is priced
Minnesota's physician fees are set through a small number of Medicare payment localities rather than a single statewide one, distinguishing the Twin Cities region from the rest of the state. Geographic adjustments in the metro run higher than in greater Minnesota, though the gap is modest by coastal standards. The state is otherwise notable for how its practice patterns, historically efficient and integrated, have featured in national Medicare policy debates. From Duluth to Worthington, non-metro Minnesota prices off common lower-cost factors.
The Twin Cities host a dense, integrated medical market, and Rochester is home to one of the most famous referral centers in the world, drawing patients from every state and abroad. Greater Minnesota relies on regional hubs like Duluth, St. Cloud, and Mankato, with long winter drives a real factor in care planning. Minnesota's tradition of integrated group practice tends to make billing more coordinated than in many states.
This procedure: Knee arthroscopy with meniscectomy is keyhole surgery in which the surgeon inserts a small camera into the knee and trims away the torn portion of the meniscus, the cartilage shock absorber between the bones. It treats meniscal tears causing pain, catching, or locking. The procedure takes 30 to 60 minutes under general or regional anesthesia at an outpatient surgery center, and most patients walk the same day and return to desk work within days.
What Is Knee Arthroscopy?
Knee arthroscopy with meniscectomy is keyhole surgery in which the surgeon inserts a small camera into the knee and trims away the torn portion of the meniscus, the cartilage shock absorber between the bones. It treats meniscal tears causing pain, catching, or locking. The procedure takes 30 to 60 minutes under general or regional anesthesia at an outpatient surgery center, and most patients walk the same day and return to desk work within days.
What Affects the Cost
- –Ambulatory surgery centers typically charge far less for this procedure than hospital outpatient departments.
- –A meniscus repair with sutures, if the tear pattern allows one, is a different code with a longer recovery and different pricing than simple trimming.
- –The pre-operative MRI that diagnosed the tear is part of the true episode cost and may still be working through your deductible.
- –Post-operative physical therapy visits, often 4 to 12 of them, are billed per visit on top of the surgery.
- –Anesthesia bills separately, and a regional nerve block for pain control adds a line item.
- –Any additional work done through the scope at the same time, such as cartilage smoothing, can add or change surgical codes.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Is my tear traumatic or degenerative, and would a course of physical therapy first be a reasonable and cheaper option?
- 2.Will this be a meniscectomy or a repair, and how do the costs and recovery differ?
- 3.Can we book this at a freestanding surgery center rather than the hospital?
- 4.What other procedures might you perform once you are inside the knee, and how would they change the bill?
- 5.How many therapy visits will I need afterward and at what cost per visit?
Other featured procedures in Minnesota
Knee Arthroscopy in other states
Knee Arthroscopy in Minnesota: questions
Minnesota is a single Medicare locality for this fee schedule. The 2026 physician rate for CPT 29881 is $489.75 in an office and $489.75 in a hospital, statewide. A ZIP lookup still confirms the locality mapping.
Not on the physician fee schedule. Minnesota 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 $98 for the office physician line or $98 for the hospital physician line in Minnesota. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $489.75 is only the physician's share. Adding Medicare's facility payment brings the total to about $3,859 in a hospital outpatient department, or about $2,161 at an ambulatory surgery centre. Anesthesia, pathology and other codes billed the same day are extra. Minnesota ranks #17 of 51 states on the physician line (5% below the national office rate of $515.71).