How Much Does a Stress Echocardiogram Cost in North Carolina?
Stress tte only
$626Hospital outpatient total2026 Medicare, physician + facilityUnder 2026 Medicare rates, a stress echocardiogram costs about $626 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 $175.
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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)
-5.4% 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 stress echocardiogram 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 $109.81.
National vs North Carolina
Where North Carolina ranks for this CPT
Stress Echocardiogram 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 stress echocardiogram combines a heart ultrasound with exercise: images are taken at rest, you walk or run on a treadmill to a target heart rate, then images are rapidly repeated to see whether any heart wall moves poorly under stress, a sign of blocked arteries. It answers many of the same questions as a nuclear stress test without radiation. Plan on about an hour, wear exercise clothes, and expect to be pushed close to your maximum effort.
What Is Stress Echocardiogram?
A stress echocardiogram combines a heart ultrasound with exercise: images are taken at rest, you walk or run on a treadmill to a target heart rate, then images are rapidly repeated to see whether any heart wall moves poorly under stress, a sign of blocked arteries. It answers many of the same questions as a nuclear stress test without radiation. Plan on about an hour, wear exercise clothes, and expect to be pushed close to your maximum effort.
What Affects the Cost
- –The complete service stacks several billed parts: the imaging, the treadmill stress supervision, and the physician interpretations.
- –Patients who cannot exercise need a dobutamine infusion instead, adding drug and administration charges.
- –Office-based cardiology labs undercut hospital outpatient pricing for the identical test.
- –It is generally cheaper than a nuclear stress test because there is no radioactive tracer, an argument for it when either test would do.
- –Inconclusive results can cascade to nuclear imaging, CT angiography, or catheterization, each a fresh cost tier.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Is stress echo or a nuclear test better for my situation, and what does each cost me?
- 2.Has prior authorization been approved for this specific test?
- 3.Will I exercise, or will I need the dobutamine version, and what does the drug add?
- 4.Is this in an office lab or a hospital department, and what is the price at each?
- 5.If the result is unclear, what is the next test and its cost?
Other featured procedures in North Carolina
Stress Echocardiogram in other states
Stress Echocardiogram in North Carolina: questions
Under 2026 Medicare rates, a stress echocardiogram costs about $626 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 $175. 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 $13 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, $175.45 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 $65.64) and the hospital is paid separately, which brings the national total to about $626. North Carolina ranks #18 of 51 states on the non-hospital rate (5% below the national office rate of $185.37).