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Procedure price report · Incision and excision of CNS

Laser heat destruction of one brain lesion, single path

CPT 61736the billing code this page is about

A laser fiber is passed through a small skull opening along one path, under MRI guidance, to heat and destroy a single simple lesion inside the brain.

Hospitals typically charge $4,166 cash for this outpatient procedure — the median across 100 hospitals that filed a usable cash price; the average of the middle 60% is $3,962. Most fall between $1,341 and $9,419 (20th–80th percentile).

Hospitals
100
States
26
Filings dated
Nov 2025 – Aug 2026
Computed
September 25, 2026
Prices checked
through September 23, 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
$897$1,683$4,166$6,839$18,631

The most expensive tenth of hospitals charges at least 21× what the cheapest tenth charges ($897 vs $18,631).

How the prices are spread

$759 – $1,063: 12 hospitals$759$1,063 – $1,488: 7 hospitals$1,488 – $2,084: 17 hospitals$1,488$2,084 – $2,919: 3 hospitals$2,919 – $4,088: 4 hospitals$2,919$4,088 – $5,724: 24 hospitals$5,724 – $8,016: 7 hospitals$5,724$8,016 – $11,226: 8 hospitals$11,226 – $15,721: 2 hospitals$11,226$15,721 – $22,016: 8 hospitals$15,721median $4,166price bands are equal on a log scale
Hospitals per price band (92 of 100 — the bands cover the 5th to 95th percentile)
FromToHospitals
$759$1,06312
$1,063$1,4887
$1,488$2,08417
$2,084$2,9193
$2,919$4,0884
$4,088$5,72424
$5,724$8,0167
$8,016$11,2268
$11,226$15,7212
$15,721$22,0168

By state

The median cash price in each state, against the national median of $4,166.

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: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNHWashington: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureWAIdaho: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceIDMontana: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMTNorth Dakota: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceNDMinnesota: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMNIllinois: 7 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureILWisconsin: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceWIMichigan: 5 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMINew York: 4 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: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNVWyoming: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureWYSouth Dakota: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceSDIowa: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureIAIndiana: 4 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureINOhio: 6 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureOHPennsylvania: median $897 across 15 hospitalsPA$897New Jersey: median $5,110 across 12 hospitalsNJ$5,110Connecticut: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceCTRhode Island: 1 hospital 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: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNEMissouri: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMOKentucky: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureKYWest Virginia: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceWVVirginia: 2 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: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureAZNew Mexico: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceNMKansas: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureKSArkansas: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureARTennessee: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureTNNorth Carolina: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceNCSouth Carolina: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceSCOklahoma: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceOKLouisiana: 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: 7 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 $18,631 across 13 hospitalsFL$18,631
Cash price by state, most expensive first. National median $4,166. A state needs at least 10 hospitals with a usable price to show a figure.
StateHospitalsMedianvs national20th–80th
Florida FL13$18,631+347%$4,166 – $18,631
New Jersey NJ12$5,110+23%$4,350 – $5,855
Pennsylvania PA15$897−78%$759 – $9,419
Georgia GA7not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Illinois IL7not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Ohio OH6not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Michigan MI5not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Indiana IN4not enough hospitals filed a usable price
New York NY4not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Kentucky KY3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Washington WA3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
California CA2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Iowa IA2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Minnesota MN2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Nebraska NE2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Nevada NV2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Virginia VA2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Arkansas AR1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Arizona AZ1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Kansas KS1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Missouri MO1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
New Hampshire NH1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Rhode Island RI1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Tennessee TN1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Texas TX1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Wyoming WY1not 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 $4,166.

Cash price by hospital segment. A segment needs at least 20 hospitals to show a figure.
SegmentHospitalsMedian20th–80th
Hospital type
Acute care88$4,370$1,347 – $9,442
Children’s7fewer than 20 hospitals
Critical access4fewer than 20 hospitals
Ownership
For-profit10fewer than 20 hospitals
Government13fewer than 20 hospitals
Non-profit76$4,370$1,275 – $8,651
System affiliation
Part of a system86$4,370$1,811 – $9,783
Independent14fewer than 20 hospitals

Cash price vs list price

Median list price (chargemaster)$4,370
Median cash price$4,166
Cash as a share of list, median hospital47%

At the typical hospital, asking for the cash price cuts the list price by about 53%. 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 122 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 here8
A number the filing itself marks as not a price (a placeholder, a ratio) — excluded1
An estimate rather than a filed cash price — excluded0
A list price only, no cash figure — excluded13
Hospitals that filed this code122

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 23, 2026; the figures were computed September 25, 2026 from filings loaded through September 23, 2026. The percentiles and averages use only the “counted” row.

Related procedures

Part of the Incision and excision of CNS family.

Hospitals file this code under descriptions such as Litt Les Icr Single Trajectory 1 Simple Lesion.

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, “Laser heat destruction of one brain lesion, single path (CPT 61736) — cash price report,” computed September 25, 2026. https://hospitalrates.com/procedures/cpt-61736-laser-heat-destruction-of-one-brain-lesion-single-path