How much does an endoscopy cost?

Cost breakdown

Each table below comes from one source, named underneath it, with the date that source last revised the figures. Everything is a United States figure in USD.

What changes the price

Which of several prices the hospital means by the code

The largest factor on this page and the one nobody can ask about, because the file does not explain it. The University of Chicago Medical Center publishes $2,216.00, $4,004.00, $6,039.00 and $6,219.00 against CPT 43235, all as facility charges, three of them under the same description.

Which endoscopy it actually is

Four different procedures share the word. At Boston Medical Center a nasal endoscopy is $830.00, a diagnostic upper endoscopy $2,353.00, an enteroscopy $1,405.00 and a capsule endoscopy $5,325.00.

Whether anything is taken or done while the camera is in

A biopsy, a dilation, a snare or an ablation each changes the code. At Boston Medical Center that runs from $750.00 for a submucosal injection to $3,818.00 for an ablation, and the decision is usually made while you are asleep.

Whether the hospital files a cash price at all

Boston Medical Center files 45 percent of its gross charge as the discounted cash price on every endoscopy row. The University of Chicago Medical Center files the gross charge again in that column, so there is nothing to ask for.

Which hospital, and the gap widens as you go up

The cheapest published figure for CPT 43235 is $2,216.00 at The University of Chicago Medical Center and $2,353.00 at Boston Medical Center. The most expensive at the first is $6,219.00 and there is no second figure at all at the other.

Whether the doctor is in the number

These are facility charges or, at Boston Medical Center, unlabelled ones. The gastroenterologist, the anaesthetist and the pathologist who reads a biopsy are usually charged separately, so a quote for the procedure may be one line of several.

How to pay less

Ask which CPT code is on the order

It is the only question that makes any other answer meaningful. An endoscopy is 43235, 43239, 91110, 91111, 31231, 44360 or 44361 before it is a price, and at Boston Medical Center those run from $830.00 to $5,325.00.

Ask which of the published prices applies to you

Where a hospital publishes several against one code, as The University of Chicago Medical Center does on all eleven codes here, the file does not say which one you will be given. Ask before the appointment rather than after the bill.

Ask for the cash price by name

Boston Medical Center files $1,058.85 against a gross charge of $2,353.00 for a diagnostic upper endoscopy. The University of Chicago Medical Center files no discount at all, so it is worth asking rather than assuming.

Ask what happens if they find something

A diagnostic endoscopy becomes a different code the moment a biopsy is taken. At Boston Medical Center that is $2,353.00 becoming $2,215.00, which happens to be lower, and at The University of Chicago Medical Center it is a code with three prices instead of four.

Ask whether an ambulatory surgery centre can do it

Much endoscopy is done outside hospitals, and no federal rule requires those centres to publish anything, so their price can be lower and cannot be checked against a filing the way the figures here can.

Ask who else will send a bill

Every figure on this page is a facility or unlabelled charge. The doctor doing the procedure, the anaesthetist and the pathologist reading anything taken are their own charges.

What to read next

The two are often done in one session, which means two codes and two charges rather than one: what a colonoscopy costs is published by these same three hospitals.

Questions

Where these figures come from

Every figure here is published by the hospital named beside it, in US dollars, in the United States, in its own machine-readable standard charges file under 45 CFR 180.50, and each file carries the attestation that the information encoded is true, accurate and complete as of the date in the file. The dates are the ones the files give themselves: 13 March 2026 for Boston Medical Center, attested by Christopher Abate, 1 April 2026 for The University of Chicago Medical Center, attested by Chris Allen, and 9 September 2025 for Franklin Memorial Hospital, attested by Kenneth Olsen. The Boston Medical Center and Franklin Memorial files were downloaded on 25 September 2026 and the University of Chicago file on 23 September 2026. BEFORE ANY CODE WAS QUOTED THE DISTINCT PUBLISHED PRICES FOR IT WERE COUNTED PER CODE AND PER BILLING CLASS, which is the whole subject of this page: at The University of Chicago Medical Center not one endoscopy code carries a single price, and at Boston Medical Center every one of twenty-two does. Boston Medical Center publishes no billing_class column, so its rows are called unlabelled rather than assumed to be facility charges; the University of Chicago rows are all labelled facility. None of these figures includes the doctor, the anaesthetist or the pathologist. The government price lookup is named because it is the only official result on the first page of this search and because it covers code 44360 rather than 43235; its own amounts are drawn by script, could not be read by a fetch or by a browser, and are not quoted or characterised here. Nothing is averaged, turned into a ratio or restated as a typical cost.

• Hospital Price Transparency

  Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · page last modified 16 September 2026

  The rule itself. CMS states that starting 1 January 2021 each hospital operating in the United States is required to publish pricing information online in two ways, as a comprehensive machine-readable file with all items and services and as a display of shoppable services in a consumer-friendly format, that CMS audits a sample of hospitals and investigates complaints, and that hospitals may face civil monetary penalties for noncompliance. Cited for the obligation and the enforcement, never for a price.

• Hospital Price Transparency: Consumers

  Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · page last modified 10 September 2024

  CMS's own description of what a hospital must make public: standard charges including the rates they negotiate with insurance companies and the discounted price a hospital is willing to accept directly from a patient if paid in cash. Cited for what the files are supposed to contain, which is how this page can say what a given file leaves out.

• Hospital Price Transparency: Hospitals

  Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · page last modified 10 March 2026

  The CMS page setting out what a hospital must publish: a single machine-readable file of gross charges, discounted cash prices, payer-specific negotiated charges and de-identified minimum and maximum negotiated charges for all items and services, and a display of at least 300 shoppable services a consumer can schedule in advance.

• Procedure Price Lookup for Outpatient Services, code 44360

  Medicare · no date is readable on the page; its figures are rendered by script and were not read

  The government's own outpatient price lookup, cited here for ONE fact and no figure: that it publishes a page for code 44360, and that this page is the only official result on the first page of results for this search. Its dollar amounts are drawn by script rather than served in the page, and neither a fetch nor the embedded browser could read them, so nothing numeric from it is quoted and no claim is made about what it says. The code's identity is taken from the hospital files' own descriptions rather than from here.

• Price transparency: standard charges machine-readable file

  The University of Chicago Medical Center · Attested by Chris Allen · file last_updated_on 1 April 2026

  The hospital's own machine-readable file, 363488183_the-university-of-chicago-medical-center_standardcharges.json, schema version 3.0.0, carrying the attestation required by 45 CFR 180.50 that the information encoded is true, accurate and complete as of the date in the file. At MS-DRG level it publishes no gross charge and no discounted cash price, and instead names each health plan and the rate agreed with it, alongside a minimum and a maximum.

• Pricing and estimates: standard charges machine-readable file

  Boston Medical Center · Attested by Christopher Abate · file last_updated_on 13 March 2026

  The hospital's own machine-readable file, 043314093_BostonMedicalCenter_standardcharges.csv, schema version 3.0.0, carrying the attestation required by 45 CFR 180.50 that the information encoded is true, accurate and complete as of the date in the file. Unlike its inpatient rows, its imaging rows carry a gross charge, a discounted cash price and a rate for each named health plan, which is why this page can answer the question about paying without insurance from a published figure rather than an estimate.

• Procedure Price Lookup for Outpatient Services

  Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · no date shown on the page; it gives national averages based on Medicare's 2026 payments and copayments

  Medicare's own national averages for an outpatient procedure, split by hospital outpatient department and ambulatory surgical center. For each it gives what Medicare pays, what the patient pays on average, and the total of the facility fee and the doctor's fee. Medicare rates are set by the government, so they work as a national benchmark; a private plan or a cash payer is charged its own price. Figures were read from the JSON the lookup page loads, saved in docs/research/cms-ppl-2026-10-12.json. Tests the tool does not cover, such as an EKG, an echocardiogram, a mammogram or an emergency visit, are not priced from it.

• Standard charges machine-readable file

  Franklin Memorial Hospital · Attested by Kenneth Olsen · file last_updated_on 9 September 2025

  The hospital's own machine-readable file, 010238552-1922791417_mainehealth_standardcharges.csv, schema version 3.0.0, published by MaineHealth for its Franklin Memorial Hospital location in Farmington, Maine, and carrying the same attestation under 45 CFR 180.50. It is the oldest of the three files quoted here and is said rather than smoothed. On every imaging row its discounted cash price is identical to its gross charge.

Sources on this page checked between 23 September and 12 October 2026. How we source prices.