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Procedure price report · Pathology

Blood culture panel to identify bacteria and fungi

CPT 0086Uthe billing code this page is about

A laboratory test on a positive blood culture that uses fluorescent probes to look for six or more bacterial or fungal targets and also reports how much antibiotic is needed to stop growth.

Hospitals typically charge $280 cash for this outpatient procedure — the median across 100 hospitals that filed a usable cash price; the average of the middle 60% is $320. Most fall between $220 and $462 (20th–80th percentile).

Hospitals
100
States
25
Filings dated
Mar 2025 – Aug 2026
Computed
September 25, 2026
Prices checked
through September 24, 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 100 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
$192$220$280$437$555

The most expensive tenth of hospitals charges at least 2.9× what the cheapest tenth charges ($192 vs $555).

How the prices are spread

$192 – $231: 30 hospitals$192$231 – $277: 15 hospitals$277 – $333: 11 hospitals$277$333 – $400: 11 hospitals$400 – $480: 17 hospitals$400$480 – $577: 4 hospitals$577 – $693: 2 hospitals$577$693 – $832: 0 hospitals$832 – $999: 1 hospitals$832$999 – $1,200: 1 hospitals$999median $280price bands are equal on a log scale
Hospitals per price band (92 of 100 — the bands cover the 5th to 95th percentile)
FromToHospitals
$192$23130
$231$27715
$277$33311
$333$40011
$400$48017
$480$5774
$577$6932
$693$8320
$832$9991
$999$1,2001

By state

The median cash price in each state, against the national median of $280.

Alaska: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceAKMaine: 7 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMEVermont: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceVTNew Hampshire: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNHWashington: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceWAIdaho: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceIDMontana: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMTNorth Dakota: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNDMinnesota: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMNIllinois: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureILWisconsin: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceWIMichigan: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMINew 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: median $192 across 11 hospitalsIA$192Indiana: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceINOhio: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureOHPennsylvania: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figurePANew Jersey: median $220 across 12 hospitalsNJ$220Connecticut: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceCTRhode Island: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureRICalifornia: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureCAUtah: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceUTColorado: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceCONebraska: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNEMissouri: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMOKentucky: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureKYWest Virginia: 8 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureWVVirginia: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceVAMaryland: 8 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMDDelaware: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceDEArizona: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureAZNew Mexico: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceNMKansas: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceKSArkansas: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceARTennessee: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureTNNorth Carolina: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceNCSouth Carolina: median $462 across 11 hospitalsSC$462Oklahoma: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureOKLouisiana: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureLAMississippi: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMSAlabama: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceALGeorgia: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureGAHawaii: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceHITexas: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureTXFlorida: median $263 across 11 hospitalsFL$263
Cash price by state, most expensive first. National median $280. A state needs at least 10 hospitals with a usable price to show a figure.
StateHospitalsMedianvs national20th–80th
South Carolina SC11$462+65%$462 – $462
Florida FL11$263−6%$263 – $263
New Jersey NJ12$220−21%$220 – $220
Iowa IA11$192−31%$192 – $192
Maryland MD8not enough hospitals filed a usable price
West Virginia WV8not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Maine ME7not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Minnesota MN3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Tennessee TN3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
California CA2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Georgia GA2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Illinois IL2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Kentucky KY2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Missouri MO2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
North Dakota ND2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
New York NY2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Ohio OH2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Oklahoma OK2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Rhode Island RI2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Arizona AZ1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Louisiana LA1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Nebraska NE1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
New Hampshire NH1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Pennsylvania PA1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Texas TX1not 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 $280.

Cash price by hospital segment. A segment needs at least 20 hospitals to show a figure.
SegmentHospitalsMedian20th–80th
Hospital type
Acute care83$263$220 – $462
Children’s1fewer than 20 hospitals
Critical access15fewer than 20 hospitals
Ownership
For-profit7fewer than 20 hospitals
Government9fewer than 20 hospitals
Non-profit83$263$220 – $462
System affiliation
Part of a system87$263$214 – $462
Independent13fewer than 20 hospitals

Cash price vs list price

Median list price (chargemaster)$438
Median cash price$280
Cash as a share of list, median hospital65%

At the typical hospital, asking for the cash price cuts the list price by about 35%. 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

100 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 100 hospitals that filed this code at all gave us
Usable cash price — counted100
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 — excluded0
Hospitals that filed this code100

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 4, 2026 and September 24, 2026; the figures were computed September 25, 2026 from filings loaded through September 12, 2026. The percentiles and averages use only the “counted” row.

Related procedures

Part of the Pathology family.

Hospitals file this code under descriptions such as NFCT DS BACT&FNG ORG ID 6+.

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, “Blood culture panel to identify bacteria and fungi (CPT 0086U) — cash price report,” computed September 25, 2026. https://hospitalrates.com/procedures/cpt-0086u-blood-culture-panel-to-identify-bacteria-and-fungi