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Procedure price report · Pathology

Limited autopsy of one body region

CPT 88036the billing code this page is about

An after-death examination restricted to one region of the body, such as the chest or abdomen, with visual inspection and/or microscopic study of tissue.

Hospitals typically charge $622 cash for this outpatient procedure — the median across 130 hospitals that filed a usable cash price; the average of the middle 60% is $791. Most fall between $330 and $1,777 (20th–80th percentile).

Hospitals
130
States
32
Filings dated
Sep 2024 – Sep 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 130 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
$134$353$622$1,661$3,214

The most expensive tenth of hospitals charges at least 24× what the cheapest tenth charges ($134 vs $3,214).

How the prices are spread

$101 – $145: 7 hospitals$101$145 – $209: 4 hospitals$209 – $300: 8 hospitals$209$300 – $431: 30 hospitals$431 – $619: 4 hospitals$431$619 – $890: 19 hospitals$890 – $1,278: 13 hospitals$890$1,278 – $1,836: 14 hospitals$1,836 – $2,637: 9 hospitals$1,836$2,637 – $3,789: 10 hospitals$2,637median $622price bands are equal on a log scale
Hospitals per price band (118 of 130 — the bands cover the 5th to 95th percentile)
FromToHospitals
$101$1457
$145$2094
$209$3008
$300$43130
$431$6194
$619$89019
$890$1,27813
$1,278$1,83614
$1,836$2,6379
$2,637$3,78910

By state

The median cash price in each state, against the national median of $622.

Alaska: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureAKMaine: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMEVermont: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureVTNew 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: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureIDMontana: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceMTNorth Dakota: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNDMinnesota: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureMNIllinois: 5 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureILWisconsin: median $3,214 across 12 hospitalsWI$3,214Michigan: 2 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: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceNVWyoming: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureWYSouth Dakota: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceSDIowa: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceIAIndiana: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureINOhio: 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: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNJConnecticut: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceCTRhode Island: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceRICalifornia: median $353 across 25 hospitalsCA$353Utah: 8 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureUTColorado: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureCONebraska: 2 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureNEMissouri: 2 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: 4 hospitals 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: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceARTennessee: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceTNNorth Carolina: median $1,777 across 12 hospitalsNC$1,777South Carolina: 3 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureSCOklahoma: median $622 across 10 hospitalsOK$622Louisiana: 7 hospitals 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: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureGAHawaii: 1 hospital filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureHITexas: 6 hospitals filed a usable price — fewer than 10, so no figureTXFlorida: no hospital in the corpus filed a usable priceFL
Cash price by state, most expensive first. National median $622. A state needs at least 10 hospitals with a usable price to show a figure.
StateHospitalsMedianvs national20th–80th
Wisconsin WI12$3,214+417%$3,045 – $3,789
North Carolina NC12$1,777+186%$1,681 – $2,132
Oklahoma OK10$6220%$622 – $622
California CA25$353−43%$353 – $353
Utah UT8not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Louisiana LA7not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Texas TX6not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Illinois IL5not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Arizona AZ4not enough hospitals filed a usable price
New York NY4not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Virginia VA4not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Indiana IN3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Minnesota MN3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
South Carolina SC3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Washington WA3not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Michigan MI2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Missouri MO2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Nebraska NE2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Ohio OH2not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Alaska AK1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Colorado CO1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Georgia GA1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Hawaii HI1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Idaho ID1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Kansas KS1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Kentucky KY1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
North Dakota ND1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
New Hampshire NH1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
New Jersey NJ1not enough hospitals filed a usable price
Pennsylvania PA1not 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 $622.

Cash price by hospital segment. A segment needs at least 20 hospitals to show a figure.
SegmentHospitalsMedian20th–80th
Hospital type
Acute care115$622$330 – $1,777
Children’s7fewer than 20 hospitals
Critical access8fewer than 20 hospitals
Ownership
For-profit24$374$165 – $2,504
Government17fewer than 20 hospitals
Non-profit89$622$353 – $1,777
System affiliation
Part of a system108$622$351 – $1,849
Independent22$803$250 – $1,580

Cash price vs list price

Median list price (chargemaster)$924
Median cash price$622
Cash as a share of list, median hospital60%

At the typical hospital, asking for the cash price cuts the list price by about 40%. 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

130 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 180 hospitals that filed this code at all gave us
Usable cash price — counted130
Cash price carrying a plausibility flag — shown on the compare tool, excluded here20
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 — excluded29
Hospitals that filed this code180

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 Pathology family.

Hospitals file this code under descriptions such as LIMITED AUTOPSY.

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, “Limited autopsy of one body region (CPT 88036) — cash price report,” computed September 25, 2026. https://hospitalrates.com/procedures/cpt-88036-limited-autopsy-of-one-body-region