How Much Does a Stress Echocardiogram Cost in North Dakota?
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 Dakota averages $184.
- ✓Your ZIP's wage-adjusted hospital and surgery center 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
North Dakota Medicare physician rate (2026)
-0.7% 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 Dakota
Enter a ZIP code for your part of North Dakota, whether Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks, Minot, or the farm and oil country in between.
What stress echocardiogram costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in North Dakota 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 58001.
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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 Dakota the office and hospital physician lines for this CPT differ by $117.51.
National vs North Dakota
Where North Dakota ranks for this CPT
Stress Echocardiogram and how North Dakota is priced
North Dakota's entire fee schedule flows through one statewide locality whose geographic indices sit near the national floor, lifted partly by the work index floor CMS applies to low-cost states. Fargo and a prairie town on the Canadian border publish identical Medicare-approved amounts. With no metro large enough to justify its own locality, the state is among the most straightforward in the country for Medicare pricing. Oil-patch growth in the west changed local economies but not the fee schedule structure.
Fargo and Bismarck are the state's two care anchors, each dominated by large regional systems that also reach into Minnesota, South Dakota, and Montana, with Grand Forks and Minot serving their own areas. Much of rural North Dakota depends on critical access hospitals, and winter travel adds a genuine planning constraint. Some eastern residents cross into Minnesota for care, particularly toward Fargo-Moorhead's twin market.
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 Dakota
Stress Echocardiogram in other states
Stress Echocardiogram in North Dakota: 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 Dakota averages $184. North Dakota is a single Medicare locality, so the physician rate is the same statewide.
Not on the physician fee schedule. North Dakota 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 $37 for the office physician line or $13 for the hospital physician line in North Dakota. 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, $183.99 is Medicare's full rate in North Dakota, covering the test and the reading. In a hospital outpatient department the physician is paid only for the reading (about $66.48) and the hospital is paid separately, which brings the national total to about $626. North Dakota ranks #32 of 51 states on the non-hospital rate (within 2% of the national office rate of $185.37).