A torn meniscus is one of the most common reasons anyone under 60 ends up in an operating room, and the surgery itself is short. The bill is not simple, though, because arthroscopic knee surgery is sold in at least four different ways: as a hospital outpatient encounter with separate facility, surgeon, and anesthesia charges, as an all-inclusive bundle at an ambulatory surgery center, as a prepaid package on a marketplace like MDsave, and as a Medicare-rate approximation that has almost nothing to do with what an uninsured patient is quoted.
This guide separates those out with figures verified in August 2026. The single most useful thing to understand up front: the operation is the same either way, but the facility fee is set separately for surgery centers and hospital outpatient departments, and that one line item is where most of the price difference lives.
What Does Meniscus Surgery Cost Without Insurance?
Two procedures share the name. A partial meniscectomy (CPT 29881) trims the torn piece out. A meniscus repair (CPT 29882) stitches it back together, takes longer, and often uses implants. On cash price lists the repair costs roughly double.
| Service / price type | Low | Average | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bundled ASC cash price, partial meniscectomy | $4,458 | $4,800 | $5,465 |
| Bundled ASC cash price, meniscus repair | n/a | $11,130 | n/a |
| Medicare 2026 national avg, 29881, surgery center | n/a | $2,159 | n/a |
| Medicare 2026 national avg, 29881, hospital outpatient | n/a | $3,857 | n/a |
| Medicare 2026 national avg, 29882 repair, surgery center | n/a | $2,285 | n/a |
| Medicare 2026 national avg, 29882 repair, hospital outpatient | n/a | $3,983 | n/a |
| MDsave prepaid, knee arthroscopy with or without meniscectomy | $2,386 | $6,909 | $12,100 |
| Sidecar Health cash data, surgery center (state averages) | $3,034 | n/a | $4,313 |
| Sidecar Health cash data, outpatient hospital (state averages) | $4,647 | n/a | $6,606 |
| NYC hospital cash prices, HCPCS 29881 | $1,872 | n/a | $20,514 |
| Florida Price Finder, meniscus repair or removal step | $3,976 | n/a | $10,226 |
The bundled surgery center prices come from published self-pay lists: Surgery Center of Oklahoma charges $4,458 all-inclusive for knee arthroscopy and for a medial and lateral meniscectomy, covering surgeon, facility, anesthesia, and routine follow-up, with a separate $250 consultation fee. Surgery Center of Allentown lists CPT 29881 at $4,706.28 and CPT 29880 (both menisci) at $4,746.26, including facility, physician, anesthesia, and pathology fees. ATX Orthopedics in Austin bundles 29881 at $4,800 and 29880 at $5,000. Newport Orthopedic Institute publishes $5,465 for an arthroscopic meniscectomy and $11,130 for an arthroscopic meniscal repair at its Newport Beach surgery center.
The Medicare figures come from the CMS Procedure Price Lookup tool, which shows 2026 national averages side by side for both settings. They are not what a self-pay patient pays, but they are the cleanest apples-to-apples measure of what the setting itself is worth.
The wildest number in the table is the New York City one. The city Health Department’s price comparison tool, built on hospitals’ own price transparency files, shows cash prices for HCPCS 29881 in New York City running from $1,872 at the cheapest provider to $20,514 at the most expensive, with Hospital for Special Surgery listed at $15,246 for the single code and up to $17,034 for its bundled arthroscopic knee repair package. That is an eleven-fold spread for one procedure inside one city, and it is the reason shopping is worth the phone calls.
What Drives the Price
Surgery center versus hospital outpatient department
This is the big one. Under 2026 Medicare rates, the surgeon is paid $515 for CPT 29881 no matter where the operation happens. The facility is paid $1,644 at an ambulatory surgery center and $3,342 at a hospital outpatient department, which pushes the total from $2,159 to $3,857. A Medicare patient’s own share goes from $431 to $771 for identical care.
Cash prices follow the same slope. Sidecar Health’s state-level data shows surgery center averages sitting at roughly 65 percent of outpatient hospital averages in every state it publishes, from $3,034 versus $4,647 in Iowa to $4,313 versus $6,606 in Alaska. If a surgeon operates at both a hospital and a surgery center, asking which one your case is scheduled at is the highest-value question you can ask.
Trim versus repair
A partial meniscectomy removes tissue. A repair sutures it, which takes longer, may need implants, and carries a longer recovery. Newport’s published rates show the practical gap plainly: $5,465 versus $11,130. Medicare’s gap is much narrower, $2,159 versus $2,285, because it pays the identical surgery center facility rate for both codes and only bumps the surgeon fee from $515 to $641. That mismatch is worth knowing, because it means the extra cost of a repair on a cash quote is mostly facility time and implants, both of which are negotiable line items.
Whether the quote is bundled
An all-inclusive price is not the same as a facility price. Every surgery center listed above states clearly what its number covers. Hospitals typically do not, which is how a $4,000 estimate turns into a $4,000 facility bill plus an anesthesia bill plus a surgeon bill. Always ask whether the quote includes the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, the surgical assistant, and pathology.
Implants and the extras that fall outside the bundle
Surgery Center of Allentown notes that implants and cellular-based therapies are priced separately from its cash rates. Surgery Center of Oklahoma excludes diagnostics, overnight stays, and treatment of complications. Newport’s rate does include implants and intraoperative radiology. Read the exclusions, because on a repair they can be the difference between a $9,000 and a $13,000 total.
Everything around the surgery
The operation is one of four line items. Florida’s Health Price Finder, run by the state Agency for Health Care Administration and updated in May 2026 with 2023 and 2024 claims data, prices a complete meniscus care bundle at $4,633 to $11,270 nationally. Inside that bundle, the surgery is $3,976 to $10,226, the knee MRI is $372 to $616, the initial office visit is $108 to $164, and post-op physical therapy is $177 to $262. Our guides to MRI cost without insurance and physical therapy cost without insurance cover how to shop those two pieces separately, which is often where the easiest savings are.
Cash Price vs. Insurance
Meniscus surgery is one of the clearest cases where a cash price can beat an insured price. If you carry a $6,000 or $8,000 deductible, a $4,458 bundled surgery center price is simply less than what you would pay a hospital while working through that deductible, and it comes with no coinsurance, no surprise anesthesia bill, and no year-end billing surprises.
The catch is that paying cash normally means the amount does not count toward your deductible or out-of-pocket maximum. That matters if you expect other large claims the same year. Some practices, including ATX Orthopedics, will quote you a surgeon fee separately so you can submit for out-of-network reimbursement yourself, and they point patients to standard insurer claim forms for that purpose.
If you are uninsured or self-pay, federal No Surprises Act rules entitle you to a written Good Faith Estimate before a scheduled procedure. Ask for it in writing, and ask specifically whether the facility, surgeon, and anesthesia are all included. Our guide to hospital price transparency explains how to pull a hospital’s own posted cash rate for a CPT code before you ever call.
How to Pay Less
Ask which facility your surgery is scheduled at, then ask if the other one is an option. The Medicare data above shows the facility fee roughly doubling between a surgery center and a hospital outpatient department. Many orthopedic surgeons operate at both. Moving the case is often a scheduling question rather than a clinical one, and it is worth asking directly.
Get bundled quotes from at least three surgery centers. The published prices in this guide came from Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and California and all landed between $4,458 and $5,465 for a meniscectomy, which tells you a fair bundled price is roughly $4,500 to $5,500. Run any quote you receive through our fair price checker before agreeing to it.
Price the MRI separately. An imaging center MRI is frequently a fraction of a hospital MRI, and the surgeon does not care where the scan was done as long as the images are readable. Newport lists an MRI without contrast at $900 on its self-pay menu, while Florida’s tool shows a national knee MRI range of $372 to $616 through claims.
Ask for the self-pay discount before the surgery, not after. Hospitals almost always have a posted uninsured discount, and it is applied on request rather than automatically. If a bill has already landed, our medical bill negotiation guide and the negotiation script tool walk through the exact language, and requesting an itemized hospital bill first is what makes the negotiation possible.
Check charity care before you assume you do not qualify. Nonprofit hospitals are required to have financial assistance policies, and thresholds are often well above the poverty line. Our hospital charity care guide and the charity care checker show how to find and apply to your hospital’s program, which can eliminate most of a five-figure arthroscopy bill.
Price the non-surgical path honestly too. Not every meniscus tear goes to the operating room, and the conservative route has its own price tags: a cortisone shot runs a few hundred dollars, knee gel injections and PRP injections cost more, and physical therapy is billed per visit. What treatment is right is a conversation with your surgeon, but knowing the price of each option before that conversation is entirely on you.
The Bottom Line
Budget $4,458 to $5,465 for a bundled arthroscopic partial meniscectomy at an ambulatory surgery center as of August 2026, and roughly $11,130 if the tear is repaired rather than trimmed. Add the MRI, the office visits, and physical therapy, and Florida’s state data puts a realistic total episode at $4,633 to $11,270.
The number that should drive your decisions is the facility gap. Medicare’s own 2026 figures show the facility fee for the same code at $1,644 in a surgery center and $3,342 in a hospital outpatient department, and New York City’s transparency tool shows real cash prices for that code spanning $1,872 to $20,514. If you are paying out of pocket, where the operation happens is worth more to your wallet than anything else you can control. Larger joint operations follow the same rule, which is why our knee replacement and hip replacement guides start in the same place.