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Procedure price report · Other Laboratory

Merkel cell cancer virus antibody test, found or not found

CPT 0059Uthe billing code this page is about

A blood test that looks for antibodies to the Merkel cell polyomavirus oncoprotein and reports only whether they are present, without a measured amount.

Hospitals typically charge $536 cash for this outpatient procedure — the median across 136 hospitals that filed a usable cash price; the average of the middle 60% is $506. Most fall between $308 and $671 (20th–80th percentile).

Hospitals
136
States
26
Filings dated
Jul 2025 – Sep 2026
Computed
September 25, 2026
Prices checked
through September 14, 2026

Median: half of hospitals filed less, half more — and it is a price some hospital actually filed. Average of the middle 60%: the mean of the prices between the 20th and 80th percentiles. We never publish the plain average, the lowest or the highest price: the extremes in hospital price files are chargemaster artefacts, not prices anyone pays.

What hospitals charge, from cheapest to most expensive

Cash price percentiles, outpatient, across 136 hospitals. Each figure is a price a hospital filed. 10th: one in ten hospitals charges less; 25th: a quarter charge less; Median: half charge less; 75th: three quarters charge less; 90th: nine in ten charge less.
10th25thMedian75th90th
$241$338$536$671$832

The most expensive tenth of hospitals charges at least 3.4× what the cheapest tenth charges ($241 vs $832).

How the prices are spread

$184 – $225: 6 hospitals$184$225 – $275: 12 hospitals$275 – $336: 9 hospitals$275$336 – $410: 26 hospitals$410 – $501: 7 hospitals$410$501 – $613: 13 hospitals$613 – $749: 39 hospitals$613$749 – $915: 5 hospitals$915 – $1,118: 3 hospitals$915$1,118 – $1,366: 4 hospitals$1,118median $536price bands are equal on a log scale
Hospitals per price band (124 of 136 — the bands cover the 5th to 95th percentile)
FromToHospitals
$184$2256
$225$27512
$275$3369
$336$41026
$410$5017
$501$61313
$613$74939
$749$9155
$915$1,1183
$1,118$1,3664

By state

The median cash price in each state, against the national median of $536.

Alaska: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceAKMaine: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMEVermont: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceVTNew Hampshire: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceNHWashington: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureWAIdaho: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureIDMontana: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMTNorth Dakota: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceNDMinnesota: 7 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMNIllinois: 9 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureILWisconsin: median $536 across 12 hospitalsWI$536Michigan: 6 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMINew York: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNYMassachusetts: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMAOregon: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceORNevada: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceNVWyoming: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceWYSouth Dakota: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceSDIowa: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceIAIndiana: median $406 across 12 hospitalsIN$406Ohio: median $671 across 13 hospitalsOH$671Pennsylvania: median $223 across 10 hospitalsPA$223New Jersey: median $355 across 14 hospitalsNJ$355Connecticut: 4 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureCTRhode Island: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureRICalifornia: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureCAUtah: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureUTColorado: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceCONebraska: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceNEMissouri: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMOKentucky: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureKYWest Virginia: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceWVVirginia: 4 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureVAMaryland: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMDDelaware: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceDEArizona: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureAZNew Mexico: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNMKansas: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceKSArkansas: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceARTennessee: 6 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureTNNorth Carolina: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNCSouth Carolina: median $646 across 14 hospitalsSC$646Oklahoma: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureOKLouisiana: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceLAMississippi: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMSAlabama: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceALGeorgia: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceGAHawaii: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceHITexas: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureTXFlorida: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureFL
Cash price by state, most expensive first. National median $536. A state needs at least 10 hospitals with a usable price to show a figure.
StateHospitalsMedianvs national20th–80th
Ohio OH13$671+25%$671 – $671
South Carolina SC14$646+21%$646 – $646
Wisconsin WI12$5360%$327 – $536
Indiana IN12$406−24%$358 – $549
New Jersey NJ14$355−34%$355 – $355
Pennsylvania PA10$223−58%$184 – $252
Illinois IL9not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Minnesota MN7not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Michigan MI6not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Tennessee TN6not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Connecticut CT4not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Virginia VA4not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Arizona AZ3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Missouri MO3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Washington WA3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Florida FL2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Idaho ID2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
New York NY2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Oklahoma OK2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Texas TX2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
California CA1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Kentucky KY1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
North Carolina NC1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
New Mexico NM1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Rhode Island RI1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Utah UT1not enough hospitals filed a usable price

Hospitals like yours

The same distribution cut by the kind of hospital. Hospital type and ownership come from CMS; a hospital counts as part of a system when its price file is shared with at least one other hospital under the same brand. The national median is $536.

Cash price by hospital segment. A segment needs at least 20 hospitals to show a figure.
SegmentHospitalsMedian20th–80th
Hospital type
Acute care116$420$300 – $692
Children’s3fewer than 20 hospitals
Critical access16fewer than 20 hospitals
Ownership
For-profit15fewer than 20 hospitals
Government8fewer than 20 hospitals
Non-profit112$536$327 – $671
System affiliation
Part of a system122$477$304 – $671
Independent14fewer than 20 hospitals

Cash price vs list price

Median list price (chargemaster)$957
Median cash price$536
Cash as a share of list, median hospital56%

At the typical hospital, asking for the cash price cuts the list price by about 44%. The share is the median of each hospital’s own cash ÷ list ratio, over hospitals that filed both — not the ratio of the two medians above.

How complete is this

136 of the 3,956 hospitals with a price file in our corpus (3%) filed a usable outpatient cash price for this code, and those are the hospitals every figure on this page is computed from.

What the 138 hospitals that filed this code at all gave us
Usable cash price — counted136
Cash price carrying a plausibility flag — shown on the compare tool, excluded here0
A number the filing itself marks as not a price (a placeholder, a ratio) — excluded0
An estimate rather than a filed cash price — excluded0
A list price only, no cash figure — excluded2
Hospitals that filed this code138

Sections not shown for this setting

  • Against Medicare: Medicare has no separately payable national outpatient (OPPS) rate for this code, so there is nothing honest to compare against.
  • Since our last snapshot: there is no earlier snapshot at least 90 days older than this one yet.

We last checked these hospitals’ price files for changes between September 5, 2026 and September 14, 2026; the figures were computed September 25, 2026 from filings loaded through September 14, 2026. The percentiles and averages use only the “counted” row.

Related procedures

Part of the Other Laboratory family.

Hospitals file this code under descriptions such as ONC MERKEL CLL CARC SRM +/-.

Method

Source
The machine-readable price files every U.S. hospital is required by CMS to publish, parsed per hospital. Nothing is surveyed, sampled or modelled.
What counts
One cash (self-pay) price per hospital for this code and setting. A hospital’s own filing can rule its number out — a placeholder, a “not applicable” note, a list price standing in for cash — and our plausibility checks can flag a price far below what every other hospital files. Both kinds are disclosed above and excluded from the statistics; on the compare tool a flagged price is still shown.
Statistics
Percentiles are discrete: each is a price some hospital filed. The average is the mean of the prices between the 20th and 80th percentiles. We never publish the plain mean, the minimum or the maximum. A state needs 10 hospitals and a segment 20 to show a figure; otherwise the row shows its count and no number. Medicare is the national unadjusted OPPS rate where one exists.
Names
Procedure names on these pages are our own plain-language titles, not the AMA’s copyrighted CPT descriptors. The code is the identity.

The full rules — sources, statistics, thresholds, limitations — are on the methodology page.

Download this page’s figures: JSON · CSV. Aggregates only — the per-hospital prices are on the compare tool.

Cite: HospitalRates.com, “Merkel cell cancer virus antibody test, found or not found (CPT 0059U) — cash price report,” computed September 25, 2026. https://hospitalrates.com/procedures/cpt-0059u-merkel-cell-cancer-virus-antibody-test-found-or-not-found