Ferritin is the blood protein that stores iron, and testing it is a single billing code, CPT 82728. Medicare pays $13.63 for it. A hospital will charge you $109 in cash for the same result. Between those two numbers sits an entire retail market most people never see, because their doctor sends the sample wherever the practice always sends it.
This guide covers what a ferritin test costs in 2026 through each route people actually use: direct-to-consumer lab stores you can buy from without an appointment, a doctor’s office draw, and a hospital outpatient lab. It also prices the two things usually ordered alongside it, a full iron panel and a vitamin B12 test, because bundling is frequently cheaper than it looks.
What Does a Ferritin Test Cost Without Insurance?
Seller prices below were read September 4, 2026 from each company’s own product page. Medicare figures come from the CY2026 Quarter 3 release of the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (effective July 1, 2026) and the CMS Physician and Other Practitioners file covering 2024 claims, released May 21, 2026. Hospital figures come from two hospitals’ machine-readable price files: the University of Vermont Medical Center’s, dated April 28, 2026, and Ochsner Clinic Foundation’s, dated April 1, 2026.
| How you buy it | Low | Typical | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medicare benchmark, CPT 82728 (2026 CLFS) | $13.63 | $13.63 | $13.63 |
| Ferritin alone, direct-to-consumer lab | $29.00 (Walk-In Lab, plus $6.00 order fee) | $35.00 all in | $59.00 (Labcorp OnDemand) |
| Hospital posted cash price, ferritin | $18.26 (Ochsner, 22% of gross) | $62 (UVM professional line) | $109 (UVM hospital line) |
| Iron panel with ferritin (iron + TIBC + ferritin) | $28.84 at Medicare rates | $59.00 (Quest) | $65.00 (Quest with its $6.00 physician fee) |
| Vitamin B12 test (CPT 82607) | $15.08 at Medicare rates | $49.00 (Labcorp OnDemand) | $105 (Ochsner gross) |
| Hospital gross charge, ferritin, before any self-pay discount | $83 (Ochsner outpatient) | $104 (Ochsner inpatient) | $109 (UVM hospital line) |
| Average charge billed to Medicare, office setting (2024 claims) | $13.33 allowed | n/a | $78.75 submitted |
Two things stand out. First, the retail spread on an identical test is more than 2x, from $29.00 to $59.00, and none of that difference reflects a better result. Second, hospital self-pay policy swings the price more than any other single factor: UVM lists the same figure for gross charge and discounted cash price, so it encodes no self-pay reduction at all, while Ochsner discounts every line to 22% of gross and lands at $18.26, cheaper than any retail lab in this guide.
Note that Quest and Walk-In Lab each add a flat $6.00 physician service fee per order rather than per test. That is why buying three tests in one order costs less per test than buying them one at a time.
What Drives the Price
The storefront, not the laboratory
A Labcorp OnDemand ferritin and a Labcorp ferritin ordered by your doctor run on the same instruments in the same building. The $18 to $109 range is a pricing decision made at the point of sale, not a difference in the assay.
Whether it is bundled
Ferritin is rarely ordered alone. The natural pairing is serum iron (CPT 83540, $6.47 on the 2026 CLFS) and total iron-binding capacity (83550, $8.74), which with ferritin come to $28.84 at Medicare rates. Retail follows the same logic: Quest’s three-test Iron, TIBC and Ferritin Panel lists at $59.00, the same price Labcorp OnDemand charges for ferritin by itself.
Hospital line versus professional line
Inside one hospital’s own file the same test carries two prices depending on how it is billed. UVM lists CPT 82728 at $62 on the professional line and $109 on the hospital line. Ochsner runs a routine ferritin and a reference-lab ferritin as separate items, both at $83 gross outpatient and $104 inpatient. Where the sample is processed moves the number more than what is measured does.
The visit and the draw ride along
Direct-to-consumer prices include the blood draw. A doctor’s office bill usually itemizes the venipuncture separately, and the visit that generated the order is a third line item on top of that. This is the single most common reason a “$13 test” turns into a three-figure bill.
Volume is why shopping works
Ferritin is not a rare test. On 2024 claims, 2,040,553 Medicare beneficiaries received 3,450,027 ferritin tests from 21,739 providers. That volume is exactly why retail lab stores compete on it.
Cash Price vs. Insurance
For a test this cheap, cash usually wins outright. A $29 to $59 ferritin is very likely below your deductible, so running it through insurance mostly applies the negotiated amount toward a deductible you may never reach, and adds whatever the office visit costs.
The gap between billed and allowed is where the risk sits. On 2024 claims, providers submitted an average of $78.75 per office-setting ferritin test to Medicare, and Medicare allowed $13.33. If you are uninsured and billed at the submitted-charge level, you are being asked for close to six times what the federal benchmark says the test is worth.
Hospital self-pay policy is the other lever, and it is close to a coin flip. UVM publishes no discount off its $109 hospital charge. Ochsner publishes a flat 22%-of-gross self-pay rate that turns an $83 ferritin into $18.26. Neither will volunteer which policy applies to you, so ask for the discounted cash rate by name.
One caution before you buy direct: results from a lab store go to you, not automatically into your clinician’s chart. If the test is part of managing an ongoing condition, ask first whether an outside result is usable, because a repeat draw erases the savings.
If a hospital lab bill is already in hand, hospital price transparency explains how to pull that hospital’s own file and find the exact row for your code. Quoting the hospital’s published number is a much stronger opening than asking for a generic discount.
How to Pay Less
Buy the panel rather than the single test. If your clinician wants iron studies, a three-test panel at $59.00 lists at the same price as ferritin alone at Labcorp OnDemand, and the $6.00 physician fee applies once per order. Splitting the tests across two orders doubles that fee and adds a second draw.
Compare several direct-to-consumer stores before buying. The identical ferritin test is $29.00 at one seller and $59.00 at another. There is no quality trade-off, so this is pure price shopping. Our fair price checker lets you sanity-check any quote against benchmark ranges.
Ask the hospital for its discounted cash rate before you assume it is expensive. A hospital ferritin looks like a bad deal at $83 to $109 in gross charges, and at UVM it is one, because the file shows no self-pay reduction. At Ochsner the same line is $18.26 to a self-pay patient, below every retail lab priced here. The phrase to use is discounted cash price, and it is worth one phone call.
Use a community health center if you need a clinician too. Federally qualified health centers and free clinics run sliding-fee schedules that cover both the visit and the lab work in one price. Start with free clinics and sliding-scale care.
Negotiate a hospital lab bill you have already received. Request an itemized hospital bill so the ferritin line is visible on its own, then work through how to negotiate medical bills using the $13.63 Medicare rate as your anchor. If the balance is large because it arrived bundled with other care, check hospital charity care and our charity care check tool.
Plan around list prices, not coupon codes. Walk-In Lab’s discounts run on time-limited promo codes; its ferritin page carried a “sale through 09/08” banner when it was read on September 4, 2026. Budget the $29.00 list price and treat any code as a bonus.
The Bottom Line
A ferritin test is a $13.63 lab procedure that changes hands between $18 and $109 depending on the storefront and, at a hospital, on whether that hospital discounts self-pay. Nothing about the chemistry changes across that range.
If you are self-paying, compare a direct-to-consumer lab store against the hospital’s discounted cash rate rather than its sticker, and buy the test inside an iron panel rather than alone. For the tests most often ordered alongside it, see our CBC test cost guide, comprehensive metabolic panel cost and blood work cost without insurance. If a low ferritin result leads to treatment, our iron infusion cost guide and B12 shot cost guide cover what comes next.