Total Knee Replacement Cost in South Carolina
Total knee arthroplasty
$14,276Hospital outpatient total2026 Medicare, physician + facility- ✓Your ZIP's wage-adjusted hospital and surgery centre 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)
-4.3% vs nationalSingle statewide locality.
What the whole procedure costs
The rate above is the physician’s fee on its own. The facility bills separately, and for most procedures the facility is the larger half of the bill. These are 2026 national Medicare amounts.
Choosing a surgery centre over a hospital saves about $3,724 on the Medicare allowed amount for total knee replacement. Ask whether your procedure can be done at an ambulatory surgery centre.
Medicare pays the hospital a single comprehensive amount for this procedure, covering the facility's share of the encounter including implants and supplies. 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 total knee replacement 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.
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 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.
National vs South Carolina
Where South Carolina ranks for this CPT
Total Knee Replacement 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: Total knee replacement resurfaces the ends of the thigh and shin bones and usually the kneecap with metal and plastic components after arthritis has worn away the cartilage. It is among the most common elective surgeries in the United States. The operation lasts one to two hours under spinal or general anesthesia, and recovery is more demanding than hip replacement: expect several months of dedicated physical therapy to regain bending and strength.
What Is Total Knee Replacement?
Total knee replacement resurfaces the ends of the thigh and shin bones and usually the kneecap with metal and plastic components after arthritis has worn away the cartilage. It is among the most common elective surgeries in the United States. The operation lasts one to two hours under spinal or general anesthesia, and recovery is more demanding than hip replacement: expect several months of dedicated physical therapy to regain bending and strength.
What Affects the Cost
- –Physical therapy is a bigger cost driver here than for almost any other surgery, because knee recovery typically requires more visits over more months.
- –Facility choice, hospital inpatient versus outpatient surgery center, can swing the total by a large margin.
- –The implant system and any patient-specific or robotic-assisted instrumentation add to the facility charge.
- –Nerve blocks for post-operative pain control are billed by anesthesia as separate procedures.
- –A stay in a skilled nursing or inpatient rehab facility, if you cannot go straight home, adds a substantial per-day cost.
- –Manipulation under anesthesia, needed by a minority of patients whose knee stiffens, is an additional procedure with its own charges.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.How many physical therapy visits will I realistically need, and how many does my plan cover per year?
- 2.Can my surgery be done outpatient, and what is the price difference at each facility you operate in?
- 3.Is prior authorization fully approved, including the conservative treatment documentation?
- 4.Will I get a nerve block, and is the anesthesia group in my network?
- 5.If I need a rehab facility stay instead of going home, what would that cost under my plan?
Other featured procedures in South Carolina
Total Knee Replacement in other states
Total Knee Replacement in South Carolina: questions
South Carolina is a single Medicare locality for this fee schedule. The 2026 physician rate for CPT 27447 is $1,109.81 in an office and $1,109.81 in a hospital, statewide. A ZIP lookup still confirms the locality mapping.
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 $222 for the office physician line or $222 for the hospital physician line in South Carolina. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $1,109.81 is only the physician's share. Adding Medicare's facility payment brings the total to about $14,276 in a hospital outpatient department, or about $10,553 at an ambulatory surgery centre. Anesthesia, pathology and other codes billed the same day are extra. South Carolina ranks #19 of 51 states on the physician line (4% below the national office rate of $1,159.35).