How Much Does Destruction of Skin Lesion Cost in Missouri?
Destruct premalg lesion
$62.75In-office total2026 Medicare, Missouri averageUnder 2026 Medicare rates, destruction of skin lesion in a doctor's office costs about $63 in Missouri, from $60 in Rest of Missouri to $64 in Metropolitan St. Louis, with no separate facility fee. In a facility the national total is up to about $253 at a hospital outpatient department, because the facility is paid its own rate on top of the physician.
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Missouri Medicare physician rate (2026)
-5.6% vs nationalAverage of 3 localities. Office range $60.24–$64.32.
What it costs in a hospital or surgery center
In a doctor’s office, the office rate above is the whole Medicare payment. When the same procedure is done in a hospital or surgery center, the facility bills its own fee on top of the physician, which is what these totals show. They are 2026 national Medicare amounts.
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 Missouri
Enter a ZIP code to see which Missouri locality covers you: metro St. Louis, metro Kansas City, or rest-of-state areas like Springfield, Columbia, Joplin, and the Bootheel.
What destruction of skin lesion costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in Missouri 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.
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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 Missouri the office and hospital physician lines for this CPT differ by $17.16.
National vs Missouri
Where Missouri ranks for this CPT
CPT 17000 by Missouri locality
| Locality | Office |
|---|---|
| metropolitan st. louis | $64.32 |
| metropolitan kansas city | $63.69 |
| rest of missouri | $60.24 |
PE GPCI ranges from 0.862 to 0.952 in Missouri. That index is why the same CPT is not one price statewide.
Destruction of Skin Lesion and how Missouri is priced
Missouri is a three-locality state: metropolitan St. Louis and metropolitan Kansas City are each priced separately, and everywhere else falls into a rest-of-state locality with lower geographic adjustments. Both metro localities approve higher amounts than outstate Missouri, and the Kansas City locality applies only to the Missouri side of that metro, since the Kansas side prices under Kansas's statewide locality. Springfield, Columbia, and the rural counties all share rest-of-state factors. The metro-versus-outstate gap is the main pricing story here.
St. Louis and Kansas City hold the state's academic medical centers and most of its specialty depth, drawing patients from far beyond Missouri's borders, including southern Illinois and eastern Kansas. Outstate Missouri is served by regional hubs in Springfield, Columbia, and Cape Girardeau, with the Ozarks and Bootheel among the harder places to reach specialty care. Rural hospital viability has been a persistent concern across the state.
This procedure: This is the destruction, most often by liquid nitrogen freezing, of a single precancerous skin lesion such as an actinic keratosis, the rough scaly patch caused by years of sun exposure. The dermatologist sprays or dabs the lesion for a few seconds; it stings briefly, blisters or crusts over a few days, and then peels away. No anesthesia or downtime is needed, and the whole treatment adds only moments to a skin exam.
What Is Destruction of Skin Lesion?
This is the destruction, most often by liquid nitrogen freezing, of a single precancerous skin lesion such as an actinic keratosis, the rough scaly patch caused by years of sun exposure. The dermatologist sprays or dabs the lesion for a few seconds; it stings briefly, blisters or crusts over a few days, and then peels away. No anesthesia or downtime is needed, and the whole treatment adds only moments to a skin exam.
What Affects the Cost
- –The code covers only the first lesion; every additional lesion frozen at the same visit is billed under add-on code 17003, and 15 or more lesions switch to code 17004.
- –Many patients need re-treatment at future visits because actinic keratoses recur, so annual cost is a multiple of one session.
- –An office visit charge is often billed alongside the freezing when the clinician also performs a skin exam or addresses other concerns.
- –Alternative treatments for widespread lesions, such as prescription field creams or photodynamic therapy, carry very different price tags worth comparing.
- –Freezing a benign spot like a plain seborrheic keratosis for appearance reasons is usually coded differently and may not be covered at all.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.How many lesions will you treat today, and what is the charge for each additional one?
- 2.Are any of the spots you plan to freeze considered cosmetic rather than precancerous?
- 3.Will today also be billed as an office visit on top of the freezing?
- 4.If I have many lesions, would a prescription cream or field treatment be more cost-effective than repeated freezing?
- 5.How often should I expect to come back for re-treatment, and what does a typical year of visits cost?
Other featured procedures in Missouri
Destruction of Skin Lesion in other states
Destruction of Skin Lesion in Missouri: questions
Under 2026 Medicare rates, destruction of skin lesion in a doctor's office costs about $63 in Missouri, from $60 in Rest of Missouri to $64 in Metropolitan St. Louis, with no separate facility fee. In a facility the national total is up to about $253 at a hospital outpatient department, because the facility is paid its own rate on top of the physician. Enter a ZIP for the exact Missouri locality.
Yes. CMS splits Missouri into 3 payment localities. For this CPT the office physician fee spans $4.08 from the lowest to highest locality. Enter a ZIP code to see which Missouri locality covers you: metro St. Louis, metro Kansas City, or rest-of-state areas like Springfield, Columbia, Joplin, and the Bootheel.
After the Part B deductible, coinsurance is usually 20% of the allowed amount: about $13 for the office physician line or $9 for the hospital physician line in Missouri. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
In a doctor's office, $62.75 is Medicare's whole payment in Missouri: it covers the physician, the room and the supplies, with no separate facility fee. If it is done in a hospital outpatient department instead, the physician is paid about $45.59 and the hospital adds its own facility payment, bringing the national total to up to about $253. Services billed under other codes, such as lab work, are extra. Missouri ranks #15 of 51 states on the office rate (6% below the national office rate of $66.47).