Gallstones rarely force a decision the same day. Most people get the diagnosis on an ultrasound, get told the gallbladder should come out at some point, and then have weeks or months to arrange it. That window is worth real money, because a laparoscopic cholecystectomy is one of the few abdominal operations that is routinely done as a same-day outpatient case, which means an ambulatory surgery center will quote you a flat price for it.
This guide uses figures verified in September 2026: the July 2026 CMS facility payment files, 2024 national Medicare claims released in 2026, two hospitals’ published self-pay prices, one hospital’s machine-readable price file, and two cash-price marketplaces. The headline finding is that the same operation costs roughly twice as much in a hospital as in a surgery center, and that two quotes that look identical can cover completely different sets of bills.
What Does Gallbladder Surgery Cost Without Insurance?
Cash prices for a laparoscopic gallbladder removal cluster between about $4,700 and $10,300 depending on the building and on what the quote actually includes.
| Price or rate | Low | Typical | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sidecar Health average cash price, ambulatory surgery center | $4,154 | $4,672 | $5,905 |
| Sidecar Health average cash price, outpatient hospital | $7,088 | $7,972 | $10,076 |
| Surgery Center of Oklahoma, all-inclusive self-pay bundle | n/a | $6,836 | n/a |
| HonorHealth prompt-pay price, facility only (CPT 47562, 47563, 47564) | n/a | $6,800 | n/a |
| Community Hospital of Stokes, posted discounted cash price (facility) | n/a | $10,257 | n/a |
| Community Hospital of Stokes, gross charge for the same line | n/a | $15,084 | n/a |
| MDsave prepaid bundle, laparoscopic, national | $6,767 | $10,738 | $15,697 |
| Medicare ambulatory surgery center payment, CPT 47562 and 47563 | n/a | $3,031 | n/a |
| Medicare hospital outpatient facility payment, CPT 47562 and 47563 (APC 5361) | n/a | $6,176 | n/a |
| Average surgeon charge submitted to Medicare, CPT 47562 (2024 claims) | n/a | $2,776 | n/a |
| Medicare allowed amount to the surgeon, CPT 47562 (2024 claims) | n/a | $594 | n/a |
A note on where these disagree. Sidecar Health’s surgery center average of $4,672 is a modelled cash estimate, while Surgery Center of Oklahoma’s $6,836 is a real posted price you can actually buy, so the honest cross-source range for an all-inclusive ASC bundle is roughly $4,700 to $6,900. MDsave’s stated national average also moved slightly between two reads on the same day in September 2026 ($10,700 on one retrieval, $10,738 on another), so its averages are approximate; the estimated national average it publishes for the same procedure, stable across both reads, is $21,660.
What Drives the Price
Surgery center versus hospital outpatient department
This is the biggest single factor and it is confirmed twice over. Under the July 2026 CMS rates, an ambulatory surgery center is paid $3,030.97 for CPT 47562 while a hospital outpatient department is paid $6,176.47 for the identical code under APC 5361. Sidecar Health’s cash data shows the same ratio in the self-pay market, with a national average of $4,672 at a surgery center against $7,972 at an outpatient hospital, a 41 percent saving.
Not everyone qualifies for an ASC. Significant heart or lung disease, a high BMI, or a gallbladder that is acutely infected can all push a case back into a hospital for safety reasons. That is a clinical judgment your surgeon makes, but if you are a candidate for both, this one question is worth several thousand dollars.
Which exact code gets billed
Three codes cover most gallbladder removals and they are not priced alike. CPT 47562 is the plain laparoscopic cholecystectomy. CPT 47563 adds a cholangiogram, an X-ray of the bile ducts taken during the operation. CPT 47564 adds exploration of the common bile duct, usually because a stone has moved into it.
Medicare pays 47562 and 47563 the same facility rate at both a surgery center ($3,030.97) and a hospital ($6,176.47), so the cholangiogram itself is effectively free at the facility level. CPT 47564 is a different animal: $5,120.50 at a surgery center and $10,860.07 at a hospital, roughly 76 percent more. HonorHealth prices all three at the same $6,800 prompt-pay facility price, which is unusually generous on the 47564 line.
Open versus laparoscopic
Open gallbladder removal (CPT 47600) is not an outpatient operation in Medicare’s eyes at all. It carries status indicator C in the July 2026 OPPS Addendum B, meaning there is no hospital outpatient payment rate, and it does not appear on the ambulatory surgery center covered list. It is billed as an inpatient admission under an MS-DRG. MDsave’s estimated national average reflects the same reality: $30,736 for open versus $21,660 for laparoscopic.
Most planned gallbladder removals start laparoscopic. A small share convert to open in the operating room. Ask any facility quoting you a bundle what happens to the price if that conversion occurs, because it usually falls outside the package.
What the quote actually covers
Two of the prices in this guide are within $36 of each other and mean completely different things. Surgery Center of Oklahoma’s $6,836 covers the surgeon, the facility, the anesthesia and routine follow-up, with a $250 consultation billed separately and diagnostics, overnight stays and complications excluded. HonorHealth’s $6,800 is the facility charge alone, and the PDF says plainly that it does not include fees from your surgeon, anesthesiologist, pathologist or radiologist. (That HonorHealth price sheet is the one the system links from its self-pay pricing page today, but the file itself was last revised in June 2020, so confirm it before relying on it.)
In 2024 Medicare claims the average surgeon charge submitted for CPT 47562 was $2,775.50, so a facility-only quote can be missing several thousand dollars of bills. Our guide to anesthesia cost covers the bill that most often arrives unexpectedly after a supposedly all-inclusive quote.
The gap between charge and price
Community Hospital of Stokes, a small Novant Health hospital in North Carolina, posts a gross charge of $15,084 for a laparoscopic cholecystectomy and a discounted cash price of $10,257.12 for the same line in its machine-readable file dated June 24 2026. That 32 percent self-pay discount is applied to the facility charge only, and it is applied on request rather than automatically. Every hospital publishes a file like this. Our guide to hospital price transparency explains how to find and read one for a specific facility before you call.
Cash Price vs. Insurance
Gallbladder removal is one of the clearer cases where a well-shopped cash price genuinely competes with insurance. A $6,836 all-inclusive bundle is below most family deductibles, and it comes with no coinsurance, no network surprises and no separate anesthesia bill six weeks later.
The counterweight is the same as always. Cash payments do not count toward a deductible or an out-of-pocket maximum, and gallbladder surgery is the kind of operation that occasionally goes long. If the case converts to open, if a stone has moved into the bile duct, or if you end up admitted overnight, the bundle stops applying and you are back on the hospital’s price list. If you expect other significant claims this year, price both routes before deciding.
The billed-versus-allowed gap is also worth knowing before any negotiation. In 2024 national Medicare claims released in 2026, the average submitted surgeon charge for CPT 47562 was $2,775.50 against a Medicare allowed amount of $594.38, a 4.7 times gap on the professional side alone. For open cholecystectomy (CPT 47600) the same pair was $3,368.52 submitted against $720.61 allowed. Those ratios tell you roughly how much air is in a chargemaster number, and they are the reason a first offer from a billing office is rarely the last one.
How to Pay Less
Get three all-inclusive quotes in writing, and define “all-inclusive” in the same sentence. Ask each facility to confirm in writing whether the number covers the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, the facility, the pathology on the removed gallbladder, and routine post-op visits. The two published prices in this guide differ by $36 and by roughly $3,000 in actual coverage. Run any figure you are quoted through our fair price checker before you agree to it.
Ask whether your case can be done at an ambulatory surgery center. Medicare’s own rates say the facility side of the operation is worth half as much there, and the cash market agrees. If your surgeon has privileges at both a hospital and a surgery center, ask which one you are booked at and why.
Ask what happens if the operation converts to open, or if you stay overnight. Get the answer before you pay a deposit. This is the single most common way a bundled price stops being a bundled price.
Pull the hospital’s own machine-readable file before you call. Hospitals are required to publish a file listing gross charges, discounted cash prices and payer-negotiated rates by code. Searching it for 47562 tells you the discount the hospital already offers self-pay patients, which turns the conversation from a request into a citation. Our hospital price transparency guide walks through how to locate one.
Negotiate the professional bills separately from the facility bill. The surgeon and anesthesiologist bill on their own letterheads and settle on their own terms. Our medical bill negotiation guide has the language, and asking for an itemized hospital bill first is what makes the conversation possible.
If a bill already arrived and it is large, apply for financial assistance before you pay a cent. Nonprofit hospital financial assistance policies routinely reach well above the poverty line, and applying protects you from collection activity while it is pending. Our hospital charity care guide covers who qualifies and how to apply.
The Bottom Line
Budget roughly $4,700 to $6,900 for an all-inclusive laparoscopic gallbladder removal at an ambulatory surgery center, and $7,100 to $10,300 if the case is done at a hospital outpatient department, as of September 2026. Add a consultation, pre-op labs and imaging on top of most quotes.
The two questions that decide your total are which building the case is booked at and which bills the quoted number actually covers. Everything else, including the cholangiogram, is comparatively minor. If your workup involved an ultrasound or an upper endoscopy first, price those separately with our ultrasound cost and endoscopy cost guides. And if you are reading this because you ended up in an emergency department instead of a surgeon’s office, the pricing works very differently, which our appendectomy cost guide explains for emergency abdominal surgery generally.