CPT99204

Office Visit (New, Moderate-High) Cost in North Carolina

Office o/p new mod 45 min

$168.94North Carolina physician fee2026 Medicare office rate
Hospital payments are wage-adjusted by locality, so the ZIP changes the numbers.
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North Carolina Medicare physician rate (2026)

-4.7% vs national

Single statewide locality.

North Carolina (Hospital)
$112.53
Facility physician fee
Private plan est.
$220–$338
~130–200% of Medicare
Cash / self-pay est.
$135–$253
~80–150% of Medicare

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 office visit (new, moderate-high) 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.

Locked

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 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 North Carolina the office and hospital physician lines for this CPT differ by $56.41.

National vs North Carolina

National office$177.36
National hospital (physician)$116.90
North Carolina vs national5% below the national office rate of $177.36

Where North Carolina ranks for this CPT

Rank (lowest physician fee first)#13 of 51
Lowest stateArkansas ($161.84)
Highest stateAlaska ($222.54)

Office Visit (New, Moderate-High) 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: 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?

Office Visit (New, Moderate-High) in North Carolina: questions

North Carolina is a single Medicare locality for this fee schedule. The 2026 physician rate for CPT 99204 is $168.94 in an office and $112.53 in a hospital, statewide. A ZIP lookup still confirms the locality mapping.

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 $34 for the office physician line or $23 for the hospital physician line in North Carolina. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.

No. $168.94 is the Medicare physician allowed amount for CPT 99204. Anesthesia, facility fees, implants, and other CPT codes billed the same day are extra. North Carolina ranks #13 of 51 states on this physician line (5% below the national office rate of $177.36).

Data source: 2026 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (CMS PPRRVU26B, released March 2026). Conversion factor: $33.4009. Prices shown are Medicare allowed amounts for the physician service and may not match what you are billed. Private insurance and self-pay ranges, when shown, are labeled estimates (typical multiples of Medicare), not quotes. This site is an independent cost tool, not medical advice.