Lumbar Discectomy Cost in Washington
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$8,312Hospital 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
Washington Medicare physician rate (2026)
+4.3% vs nationalAverage of 2 localities. Office range $892.67–$980.27.
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 $3,718 on the Medicare allowed amount for lumbar discectomy. 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 Washington
Enter your ZIP code to see whether Seattle-area or rest-of-state pricing applies, from Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett to Spokane, the Tri-Cities, Vancouver, Bellingham, and the Olympic Peninsula.
What lumbar discectomy costs at hospitals near you
Everything above is a national average. The hospital you pick in Washington 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 Washington
Where Washington ranks for this CPT
CPT 63030 by Washington locality
| Locality | Office |
|---|---|
| seattle (king cnty) | $980.27 |
| rest of washington | $892.67 |
PE GPCI ranges from 1.053 to 1.227 in Washington. That index is why the same CPT is not one price statewide.
Lumbar Discectomy and how Washington is priced
Washington divides into a Seattle-area locality and a rest-of-state locality, so Puget Sound's biggest market carries higher geographic adjustments than Spokane, the Tri-Cities, or the coast. The Seattle locality reflects some of the highest wages in the western United States, while everywhere else in the state shares one lower-cost set of factors. An identical procedure is therefore approved at more in Seattle than in Spokane, a two-tier pattern much like Oregon's. Rest-of-state Washington still prices respectably against national averages.
Seattle is the referral capital of the Pacific Northwest, with academic medicine that serves not just Washington but Alaska, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming through long-standing regional arrangements. Spokane anchors the Inland Northwest, drawing patients from northern Idaho and beyond, while the Olympic Peninsula and southwest coast are comparatively underserved. Rapid consolidation has concentrated much of the state's care into a few large systems.
This procedure: Lumbar discectomy removes the herniated portion of a spinal disc in the lower back that is pressing on a nerve root, relieving the leg pain, numbness, or weakness known as sciatica. Performed through a small incision, often with a microscope, it is one of the most common spine surgeries. The operation takes one to two hours under general anesthesia, and most patients go home the same day or after one night, with leg pain often improved immediately.
What Is Lumbar Discectomy?
Lumbar discectomy removes the herniated portion of a spinal disc in the lower back that is pressing on a nerve root, relieving the leg pain, numbness, or weakness known as sciatica. Performed through a small incision, often with a microscope, it is one of the most common spine surgeries. The operation takes one to two hours under general anesthesia, and most patients go home the same day or after one night, with leg pain often improved immediately.
What Affects the Cost
- –Facility choice matters: this surgery is increasingly done at ambulatory surgery centers at far lower facility fees than hospitals.
- –Operating on more than one disc level adds an add-on code and increases surgeon and facility charges.
- –The pre-surgical MRI, specialist consultations, and any epidural steroid injections tried first are all part of the real episode cost.
- –Neuromonitoring during surgery, used by some surgeons, generates a separate and sometimes out-of-network professional bill.
- –Post-operative physical therapy, commonly prescribed after recovery, is billed per visit.
- –Reherniation occurs in a minority of patients and a revision surgery restarts the entire cost cycle.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- 1.Has prior authorization been approved, including my documented weeks of conservative treatment?
- 2.Can my surgery be done at an ambulatory surgery center, and what is the facility price difference?
- 3.Will you use intraoperative neuromonitoring, and is that company in my network?
- 4.How many disc levels will you operate on, and how does each level change the cost?
- 5.What is your reherniation rate, and what would a revision surgery cost me?
Other featured procedures in Washington
Lumbar Discectomy in other states
Lumbar Discectomy in Washington: questions
The 2026 Medicare physician office rate for CPT 63030 averages $936.47 across 2 Washington localities, from $892.67 in REST OF WASHINGTON to $980.27 in SEATTLE (KING CNTY). The hospital physician rate averages $936.47. Enter a ZIP for the exact locality.
Yes. CMS splits Washington into 2 payment localities. For this CPT the office physician fee spans $87.60 from the lowest to highest locality. Enter your ZIP code to see whether Seattle-area or rest-of-state pricing applies, from Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett to Spokane, the Tri-Cities, Vancouver, Bellingham, and the Olympic Peninsula.
After the Part B deductible, coinsurance is usually 20% of the allowed amount: about $187 for the office physician line or $187 for the hospital physician line in Washington. Medigap may cover that 20%. This is not the hospital facility fee.
No. $936.47 is only the physician's share. Adding Medicare's facility payment brings the total to about $8,312 in a hospital outpatient department, or about $4,594 at an ambulatory surgery centre. Anesthesia, pathology and other codes billed the same day are extra. Washington ranks #44 of 51 states on the physician line (4% above the national office rate of $898.15).