How Much Does an Echocardiogram Cost in South Carolina?
Tte w/doppler complete
$626Hospital outpatient total2026 Medicare, physician + facilityUnder 2026 Medicare rates, an 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 South Carolina averages $185.
- ✓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
South Carolina Medicare physician rate (2026)
-5.9% 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 South Carolina
Check your ZIP code for your region of South Carolina, whether Charleston and the Lowcountry, Columbia and the Midlands, Greenville-Spartanburg in the Upstate, or Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand.
What echocardiogram costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in South 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 29001.
One-off payment, no account and no subscription. You get a private link and an email. No medical records and no insurance card, ever.
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 South Carolina the office and hospital physician lines for this CPT differ by $119.37.
National vs South Carolina
Where South Carolina ranks for this CPT
Echocardiogram and how South Carolina is priced
South Carolina prices through one statewide locality with indices a bit below the national average, so Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, and the rural Pee Dee share the same Medicare-approved amounts. Rapid coastal growth has not led CMS to break out a separate locality, keeping the fee schedule uniform from the mountains to the sea islands. The single set of adjustments makes the statewide figures here directly usable anywhere in the state. Facility fees at hospital-owned locations remain the largest source of price variation for patients.
The state's medical firepower splits three ways: an academic medical center and strong hospital market in Charleston, the capital-region systems in Columbia, and a large Upstate network centered on Greenville. Retiree-heavy coastal areas like Hilton Head and Myrtle Beach have booming demand for Medicare-age care, while the rural I-95 corridor faces some of the state's worst access gaps. Some border residents use Charlotte or Augusta providers.
This procedure: A complete transthoracic echocardiogram is an ultrasound movie of the heart, capturing chamber sizes, pumping strength, and, in this code's complete-with-Doppler form, blood flow across each valve. It evaluates murmurs, shortness of breath, heart failure, and valve disease. A sonographer glides a probe across your chest for 30 to 45 minutes while you lie on your side; there is no radiation, no dye, and no preparation.
What Is Echocardiogram?
A complete transthoracic echocardiogram is an ultrasound movie of the heart, capturing chamber sizes, pumping strength, and, in this code's complete-with-Doppler form, blood flow across each valve. It evaluates murmurs, shortness of breath, heart failure, and valve disease. A sonographer glides a probe across your chest for 30 to 45 minutes while you lie on your side; there is no radiation, no dye, and no preparation.
What Affects the Cost
- –Hospital outpatient echo labs charge dramatically more than cardiologist office-based labs for the same complete study.
- –This complete-with-Doppler code prices above limited or follow-up echo codes, so the study type ordered matters.
- –The interpreting cardiologist's professional fee is a separate component at facility-based labs.
- –Serial echos to monitor a known valve problem repeat the full cost at each surveillance interval.
- –If images are inadequate, an ultrasound-enhancing contrast agent may be used, adding a drug charge, or a transesophageal echo may follow at substantially higher cost.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Has prior authorization been approved if my plan requires it for echo?
- 2.What is the price at your office lab versus the hospital's echo department?
- 3.Is a complete study needed, or does my follow-up qualify for the cheaper limited echo?
- 4.Is the cardiologist's reading fee included in the quote?
- 5.How often will this need repeating for my condition, and at what recurring cost?
Other featured procedures in South Carolina
Echocardiogram in other states
Echocardiogram in South Carolina: questions
Under 2026 Medicare rates, an 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 South Carolina averages $185. South Carolina is a single Medicare locality, so the physician rate is the same statewide.
Not on the physician fee schedule. South 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 $37 for the office physician line or $13 for the hospital physician line in South 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, $185.19 is Medicare's full rate in South Carolina, covering the test and the reading. In a hospital outpatient department the physician is paid only for the reading (about $65.82) and the hospital is paid separately, which brings the national total to about $626. South Carolina ranks #17 of 51 states on the non-hospital rate (6% below the national office rate of $196.73).