Medicare's national average for a knee arthroscopy in 2026 is $2,159 at an ambulatory surgery center and $3,857 at a hospital outpatient department — a range of $2,159 to $3,857 for the same procedure code, CPT 29881. Those totals cover the doctor's fee and the facility's fee together. A Medicare patient's own share is $431 at the surgery center and $771 at the hospital.
Medicare describes CPT 29881 as “Arthroscopy, knee, surgical; with meniscectomy” — in plain terms, a surgical knee arthroscopy with meniscectomy (torn-meniscus trim). The figures below are national averages published by CMS; your own region, and above all your own insurance status, will move them.
| Ambulatory surgery center | Hospital outpatient department | |
|---|---|---|
| Total (Medicare-approved amount) | $2,159 | $3,857 |
| Doctor fee | $515 | $515 |
| Facility fee | $1,644 | $3,342 |
| Medicare pays | $1,727 | $3,086 |
| Patient pays (average) | $431 | $771 |
Source: Medicare.gov Procedure Price Lookup, CPT 29881, retrieved July 29, 2026. CMS states these are national averages based on Medicare’s 2026 payments and copayments; the underlying dataset is the CMS 2026 Hospital Outpatient PPS annual policy file. Figures are rounded by CMS and are not intended to reconcile to the dollar.
The most useful thing in that table is what does not change. The doctor’s fee is $515 in both settings. What moves is the facility fee: $1,644 at a surgery center against $3,342 at a hospital outpatient department — 2.0× as much. Because the professional fee is fixed, the whole 1.8× difference in the total is the building.
Medicare.gov's own note on this procedure says the figures include facility and doctor fees, but that “you may need more than one doctor and additional costs may apply.” In practice the extra bill is usually anesthesia, and sometimes pathology. Two things from CMS's National Correct Coding Initiative Policy Manual are worth knowing before you pay any of them:
Anesthesia itself is reported from the CPT anesthesia series; the manual notes that codes 00100–01860 are the “Anesthesia for” codes tied to a surgical intervention, and that 99151–99157 describe moderate (conscious) sedation. Which specific code applies depends on the operation, so ask for the anesthesia claim in writing rather than assuming.
Everything above is what Medicare pays. It is not a cash price, it is not what a commercial insurer has negotiated, and it is certainly not a hospital’s list price. Those three numbers can differ from each other by multiples for the identical procedure code at the identical hospital.
We are deliberately not publishing a national “fair cash price” for a knee arthroscopy. We do not have a current primary-source benchmark for one, and a stale number presented as today’s would be worse than no number. What we can tell you is where the number that actually governs your bill lives: your hospital publishes its own rates for CPT 29881 — the gross charge, the discounted cash price, and the payer-specific negotiated rates — in a machine-readable file. Our hospital price check walks you to it, and this guide shows how to read it once you get there.
If you just want a quick sanity check on the number in front of you, the overcharge estimator compares your charge against typical national ranges. Treat it as a smoke alarm, not a valuation.
CMS’s NCCI Policy Manual uses knee arthroscopy as its worked example: when the anesthesia practitioner gives an epidural block and leaves the catheter in for post-operative pain, the manual states they “shall not also report” the epidural-injection codes 62322, 62323, 62326 or 62327, or the daily epidural-management code 01996, on the date of surgery. If those codes appear on your date of surgery, that is a documented reason to ask.
The same manual states that post-operative pain management by the physician who performed the surgery “is not separately reportable” — it is inside the global surgical package.
A meniscectomy trims tissue rather than implanting anything. An implant or device line item on a 29881 claim is worth asking the billing department to document.
Have the bill in front of you? Upload it and our AI reads every line — decoding each code, flagging duplicates, upcoding and unbundling, and drafting a dispute letter for anything it flags.
Audit my bill →CPT® is a registered trademark of the American Medical Association. CPT code descriptions quoted above are reproduced only as they appear on the CMS pages cited.