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Procedure price report · Microscopic examination (bacterial smear, culture, toxicology)

Rapid gonorrhea test read by eye

CPT 87850the billing code this page is about

A quick antigen test for Neisseria gonorrhoeae from a specimen, with the result read visually at the time of testing.

Hospitals typically charge $30 cash for this outpatient procedure — the median across 179 hospitals that filed a usable cash price; the average of the middle 60% is $39. Most fall between $24 and $83 (20th–80th percentile).

Hospitals
179
States
29
Filings dated
Dec 2024 – Sep 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 179 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
$24$24$30$74$94

The most expensive tenth of hospitals charges at least 4.0× what the cheapest tenth charges ($24 vs $94).

How the prices are spread

$17 – $21: 7 hospitals$17$21 – $25: 54 hospitals$25 – $30: 22 hospitals$25$30 – $37: 9 hospitals$37 – $45: 15 hospitals$37$45 – $54: 16 hospitals$54 – $66: 1 hospitals$54$66 – $80: 3 hospitals$80 – $96: 32 hospitals$80$96 – $117: 4 hospitals$96median $30price bands are equal on a log scale
Hospitals per price band (163 of 179 — the bands cover the 5th to 95th percentile)
FromToHospitals
$17$217
$21$2554
$25$3022
$30$379
$37$4515
$45$5416
$54$661
$66$803
$80$9632
$96$1174

By state

The median cash price in each state, against the national median of $30.

Alaska: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceAKMaine: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMEVermont: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureVTNew Hampshire: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceNHWashington: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureWAIdaho: 1 hospital 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: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMNIllinois: 7 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureILWisconsin: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceWIMichigan: 7 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMINew York: median $25 across 16 hospitalsNY$25Massachusetts: 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: median $50 across 11 hospitalsIA$50Indiana: 4 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureINOhio: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureOHPennsylvania: median $19 across 16 hospitalsPA$19New Jersey: median $27 across 23 hospitalsNJ$27Connecticut: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceCTRhode Island: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureRICalifornia: median $94 across 35 hospitalsCA$94Utah: 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: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMOKentucky: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureKYWest Virginia: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceWVVirginia: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceVAMaryland: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMDDelaware: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceDEArizona: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureAZNew Mexico: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNMKansas: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureKSArkansas: 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: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureSCOklahoma: median $43 across 12 hospitalsOK$43Louisiana: 4 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureLAMississippi: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMSAlabama: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureALGeorgia: median $24 across 10 hospitalsGA$24Hawaii: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureHITexas: 3 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 $30. A state needs at least 10 hospitals with a usable price to show a figure.
StateHospitalsMedianvs national20th–80th
California CA35$94+214%$83 – $94
Iowa IA11$50+65%$50 – $50
Oklahoma OK12$43+45%$43 – $43
New Jersey NJ23$27−10%$25 – $27
New York NY16$25−18%$25 – $33
Georgia GA10$24−19%$24 – $24
Pennsylvania PA16$19−36%$16 – $28
Illinois IL7not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Michigan MI7not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Indiana IN4not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Louisiana LA4not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Hawaii HI3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Kentucky KY3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
South Carolina SC3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Tennessee TN3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Texas TX3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Arizona AZ2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Florida FL2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Kansas KS2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Nebraska NE2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Nevada NV2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Washington WA2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Alabama AL1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Idaho ID1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
New Mexico NM1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Ohio OH1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Rhode Island RI1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Vermont VT1not 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 $30.

Cash price by hospital segment. A segment needs at least 20 hospitals to show a figure.
SegmentHospitalsMedian20th–80th
Hospital type
Acute care166$30$24 – $83
Children’s1fewer than 20 hospitals
Critical access12fewer than 20 hospitals
Ownership
For-profit24$24$24 – $74
Government20$25$24 – $52
Non-profit135$34$24 – $83
System affiliation
Part of a system157$28$24 – $83
Independent22$37$24 – $73

Cash price vs list price

Median list price (chargemaster)$74
Median cash price$30
Cash as a share of list, median hospital53%

At the typical hospital, asking for the cash price cuts the list price by about 47%. 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

179 of the 3,956 hospitals with a price file in our corpus (5%) filed a usable outpatient cash price for this code, and those are the hospitals every figure on this page is computed from.

What the 188 hospitals that filed this code at all gave us
Usable cash price — counted179
Cash price carrying a plausibility flag — shown on the compare tool, excluded here7
A number the filing itself marks as not a price (a placeholder, a ratio) — excluded2
An estimate rather than a filed cash price — excluded0
A list price only, no cash figure — excluded0
Hospitals that filed this code188

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

Related procedures

Part of the Microscopic examination (bacterial smear, culture, toxicology) family.

Hospitals file this code under descriptions such as N. GONORRHOEAE ASSAY W/OPTIC.

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, “Rapid gonorrhea test read by eye (CPT 87850) — cash price report,” computed September 25, 2026. https://hospitalrates.com/procedures/cpt-87850-rapid-gonorrhea-test-read-by-eye