Ultrasound Abdomen Cost in South Carolina
Us exam abdom complete
$221Hospital 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)
-6.0% 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 $50 on the Medicare allowed amount for ultrasound abdomen. Ask whether your procedure can be done at an ambulatory surgery centre.
Medicare may pay the facility separately for this code or package it into another service on the same day, so treat the facility share as an upper bound. 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 ultrasound abdomen 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
Ultrasound Abdomen 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 abdominal ultrasound uses sound waves, no radiation, to examine the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, kidneys, spleen, and major vessels in one session. It is a first-line test for right-upper-belly pain, suspected gallstones, abnormal liver blood tests, and follow-up of known findings. You fast for several hours beforehand so the gallbladder is full, then lie on a table while a technologist glides a warm gel-covered probe over your abdomen for 20 to 30 minutes.
What Is Ultrasound Abdomen?
A complete abdominal ultrasound uses sound waves, no radiation, to examine the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, kidneys, spleen, and major vessels in one session. It is a first-line test for right-upper-belly pain, suspected gallstones, abnormal liver blood tests, and follow-up of known findings. You fast for several hours beforehand so the gallbladder is full, then lie on a table while a technologist glides a warm gel-covered probe over your abdomen for 20 to 30 minutes.
What Affects the Cost
- –Hospital outpatient ultrasound departments charge notably more than independent imaging centers and many physician offices.
- –The complete study covers all upper abdominal organs; a limited single-organ study is a cheaper code when only one question needs answering.
- –The sonographer's images are read by a radiologist whose professional fee may bill separately.
- –Poor views from bowel gas or body habitus occasionally force a repeat study or escalation to CT, adding cost.
- –Findings like gallstones frequently lead to surgical consultation, making this scan a common gateway to a larger episode.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Do I need the complete study, or would a limited single-organ ultrasound answer my question at a lower price?
- 2.What are your fasting instructions so the study does not have to be repeated?
- 3.Is the radiologist reading fee included in the quote?
- 4.What does this cost at your imaging center versus the hospital location?
- 5.If views are limited, would you move to CT, and what would that cost?
Other featured procedures in South Carolina
Ultrasound Abdomen in other states
Ultrasound Abdomen in South Carolina: questions
South Carolina is a single Medicare locality for this fee schedule. The 2026 physician rate for CPT 76700 is $107.41 in an office and $107.41 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 $21 for the office physician line or $21 for the hospital physician line in South Carolina. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $107.41 is only the physician's share. Adding Medicare's facility payment brings the total to about $221 in a hospital outpatient department, or about $171 at an ambulatory surgery centre. Anesthesia, pathology and other codes billed the same day are extra. South Carolina ranks #16 of 51 states on the physician line (6% below the national office rate of $114.23).