The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a new online tool that allows patients to compare costs for certain procedures that are performed in hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs).
The Procedure Price Lookup tool displays national averages for the amount Medicare pays and the national average copayment amount a beneficiary with no Medicare supplemental insurance would pay the provider.
For example, the average total cost of a total disk arthroplasty with diskectomy is $11,213 at an ASC versus $15,371 at a HOPD; the average total cost of an anterior cervical diskectomy is $7,337 at an ASC versus $10,123 at a HOPD.
