How Much Does a Carotid Ultrasound Cost in North Carolina?
Extracranial bilat study
$281Hospital outpatient total2026 Medicare, physician + facilityUnder 2026 Medicare rates, a carotid ultrasound costs about $281 in total at a hospital outpatient department, counting both the physician and the facility (national rates). Outside a hospital, at an independent imaging center, lab or office, Medicare's full rate in North Carolina averages $177.
- ✓Your ZIP's wage-adjusted hospital and surgery center rates
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- ✓The add-on codes that typically land on the bill
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- ✓Everything in the Premium report
- ✓15 nearby hospitals instead of five
- ✓Filled good-faith-estimate request letter
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- ✓Printable PDF download
North Carolina Medicare physician rate (2026)
-6.3% vs nationalSingle statewide locality.
What the whole procedure costs
The office rate above is what an imaging center, lab or office is paid for the whole test. In a hospital, the facility bills its own fee and the physician bills only the reading. These are 2026 national Medicare amounts.
This is Medicare's separate payment to the facility on top of the physician's fee. For a test like this the physician in a hospital bills only the reading (the professional component); outside a hospital one global fee covers the whole test, shown in the office rate above. Medicare allowed amounts are not what an uninsured patient is charged, and not a quote. Private plans typically allow more.
Your ZIP in North Carolina
Check your ZIP code for your region of North Carolina, whether Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham and the Triangle, the Triad, Asheville and the mountains, or Wilmington and the coastal east.
What carotid ultrasound costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in North Carolina 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 27006.
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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 North Carolina the office and hospital physician lines for this CPT differ by $141.19.
National vs North Carolina
Where North Carolina ranks for this CPT
Carotid Ultrasound and how North Carolina is priced
North Carolina's Medicare physician pricing comes from one statewide locality with indices just under the national average, so Charlotte, the Research Triangle, and the rural east and mountain west all share the same approved amounts. For a state with several fast-growing metros, the single-locality approach keeps the fee schedule simple even as local economies diverge. Nothing in the geographic adjustments distinguishes a Raleigh procedure from one in Boone or Greenville. As elsewhere, the office-versus-hospital setting decision moves prices more than geography within the state does.
North Carolina is unusually rich in academic medicine, with multiple nationally known university medical centers clustered in the Triangle and Winston-Salem, plus a major hospital system anchored in Charlotte that has grown across the Southeast. The rural east and the mountain counties are much thinner markets, and hospital consolidation has been reshaping who owns local care. Patients near the borders sometimes use Virginia or South Carolina providers.
This procedure: A bilateral carotid duplex ultrasound examines the arteries on both sides of the neck that supply the brain, measuring plaque buildup and blood flow speed to estimate narrowing. It is ordered after a stroke or mini-stroke, for a bruit heard in the neck, or before certain surgeries. A technologist moves a probe along each side of your neck for 30 to 45 minutes; it is painless, radiation-free, and requires no preparation.
What Is Carotid Ultrasound?
A bilateral carotid duplex ultrasound examines the arteries on both sides of the neck that supply the brain, measuring plaque buildup and blood flow speed to estimate narrowing. It is ordered after a stroke or mini-stroke, for a bruit heard in the neck, or before certain surgeries. A technologist moves a probe along each side of your neck for 30 to 45 minutes; it is painless, radiation-free, and requires no preparation.
What Affects the Cost
- –Hospital vascular labs charge multiples of what office-based or freestanding vascular labs charge for the same bilateral study.
- –Significant narrowing triggers surveillance scans every 6 to 12 months, making the per-scan price a recurring expense for years.
- –Findings can cascade to CT or MR angiography for confirmation, each far more expensive than the ultrasound.
- –The interpreting physician's fee is a separate component at facility-based labs.
- –Screening packages sold directly to consumers by mobile companies price this scan cheaply as cash-pay, but positive findings still funnel into insured follow-up costs.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.What indication is on my order, and is it one my insurer covers?
- 2.What does this study cost at an office vascular lab versus the hospital?
- 3.If narrowing is found, how often will I need repeat scans and at what cost each?
- 4.Would an abnormal result lead to CT or MR angiography, and what do those cost?
- 5.Is the physician interpretation included in your quoted price?
Other featured procedures in North Carolina
Carotid Ultrasound in other states
Carotid Ultrasound in North Carolina: questions
Under 2026 Medicare rates, a carotid ultrasound costs about $281 in total at a hospital outpatient department, counting both the physician and the facility (national rates). Outside a hospital, at an independent imaging center, lab or office, Medicare's full rate in North Carolina averages $177. North Carolina is a single Medicare locality, so the physician rate is the same statewide.
Not on the physician fee schedule. North Carolina 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 $35 for the office physician line or $7 for the hospital physician line in North Carolina. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
It depends on where the test is done. At an independent imaging center, lab or office, $177.15 is Medicare's full rate in North Carolina, covering the test and the reading. In a hospital outpatient department the physician is paid only for the reading (about $35.96) and the hospital is paid separately, which brings the national total to about $281. North Carolina ranks #18 of 51 states on the non-hospital rate (6% below the national office rate of $189.05).