# Abscess drainage in Atlanta, GA

Billing code `10060`. Prices for this code at 26 hospitals within 35 miles of Atlanta, taken from the machine-readable standard charge files each hospital is required to publish under the CMS Hospital Price Transparency Rule (45 CFR 180.50).

Source page: https://clearcharge.org/price/ga/atlanta/abscess-drainage

HC DRAIN SKIN ABSCESS SIMPLE

**Where this is done matters more than which hospital:** Abscess drainage is a procedure a doctor's office can perform, and Medicare pays about 2.4x more for it at a hospital outpatient department than in an office. Every price below is a hospital's, and excludes the doctor's separate bill. Do not quote these as the cost of the procedure without saying which setting they describe.

## Before quoting any figure below

- **Hospital charges only.** The surgeon, anaesthetist, radiologist and pathologist bill separately and appear in no hospital price file, by construction. Every figure below is part of a total, never the total.
- **A negotiated rate is not a bill.** It is what a hospital and an insurer agreed. What a patient owes depends on their deductible, coinsurance and out-of-pocket maximum.
- **Each hospital's figure is a median across its own plans.** The spread inside one hospital is often wider than the gap between two of them.
- **"not mentioned" is not $0.** It means this hospital's file does not label a row that way. Silence is not a statement that the charge does not exist.
- **A hospital absent from the table says nothing about its prices.** It may publish this code under a revenue or drug code this site cannot map to a procedure.

A procedure code is billed twice -- once by the hospital for its own costs, once by the doctor for their work -- and hospitals publish different sides of that split under the same code. Of the hospitals here, 11 publish a facility charge; 1 publish both, mixed together; 14 do not label which half the figure is.

## Typical price

|  | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cheapest tenth | $218 |
| Typical | $388 |
| Dearest tenth | $2,076 |

The cheapest and dearest tenth are the hospitals a tenth of the way in from each end, not the single cheapest and dearest. Every hospital, including both extremes, is in the table below.

That is a 10-fold difference for the same billing code, between hospitals within 35 miles of each other -- a gap between hospitals, not between treatments.

## Every hospital publishing this code

| Hospital | Where | CMS rating | Typical | Facility charge | Physician fee | Self-pay | Lowest | Highest | Plans on file |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grady Memorial Hospital | ATLANTA (6.1 mi) | 2/5 | see split | $1,217 | $90 | $2,797 | $50 | $4,275 | 87 |
| Southern Regional Medical Center | RIVERDALE (19.7 mi) | 1/5 | $206 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $200 | $190 | $1,463 | 41 |
| Northside Hospital Duluth | DULUTH (15.5 mi) | 4/5 | $218 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $240 | $40 | $50,000 | 356 |
| Northside Hospital Gwinnett | LAWRENCEVILLE (25.8 mi) | 3/5 | $218 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $240 | $48 | $50,000 | 356 |
| Northside Hospital | ATLANTA (3.2 mi) | 3/5 | $283 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $240 | $67 | $50,000 | 220 |
| Northside Hospital Forsyth | CUMMING (29.4 mi) | 4/5 | $283 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $240 | $67 | $50,000 | 219 |
| Northside Hospital Cherokee | CANTON (25.4 mi) | 4/5 | $283 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $240 | $67 | $50,000 | 221 |
| Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite | ATLANTA (3.2 mi) | not rated | $378 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $551 | $230 | $551 | 84 |
| Athur M Blank Hospital | ATLANTA (2.3 mi) | not rated | $378 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $551 | $235 | $551 | 84 |
| WellStar Douglas Medical Center | DOUGLASVILLE (24.5 mi) | 3/5 | $385 | $385 | not mentioned | $795 | $202 | $3,391 | 12 |
| WellStar Kennestone Regional Medical Center | MARIETTA (12.1 mi) | 4/5 | $388 | $388 | not mentioned | $795 | $204 | $3,391 | 12 |
| WellStar Paulding Medical Center | HIRAM (23.5 mi) | 4/5 | $388 | $388 | not mentioned | $795 | $204 | $3,391 | 12 |
| WellStar Cobb Medical Center | AUSTELL (15.4 mi) | 3/5 | $388 | $388 | not mentioned | $795 | $204 | $3,391 | 12 |
| WellStar North Fulton Medical Center | ROSWELL (13.5 mi) | 2/5 | $388 | $388 | not mentioned | $795 | $204 | $3,391 | 12 |
| Tanner Medical Center Villa Rica | VILLA RICA (33.1 mi) | 3/5 | $563 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $563 | $204 | $873 | 17 |
| Emory Hillandale Hospital | LITHONIA (16.0 mi) | 1/5 | $1,462 | $1,462 | not mentioned | $4,609 | $201 | $4,840 | 16 |
| Piedmont Eastside Medical Center | SNELLVILLE (19.7 mi) | 2/5 | $1,888 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $836 | $544 | $2,787 | 18 |
| Piedmont Rockdale Hospital | CONYERS (22.2 mi) | 3/5 | $1,951 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $836 | $336 | $2,787 | 18 |
| Piedmont Fayette Hospital | FAYETTEVILLE (25.0 mi) | 3/5 | $1,993 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $836 | $257 | $2,787 | 18 |
| Piedmont Henry Hospital | STOCKBRIDGE (21.0 mi) | 2/5 | $1,993 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $836 | $236 | $2,787 | 18 |
| Piedmont Hospital | ATLANTA (3.0 mi) | 4/5 | $1,993 | not mentioned | not mentioned | $836 | $318 | $2,787 | 18 |
| Emory Johns Creek Hospital | JOHNS CREEK (17.9 mi) | 4/5 | $2,076 | $2,076 | not mentioned | $4,609 | $204 | $4,840 | 18 |
| Emory University Hospital | ATLANTA (3.6 mi) | 4/5 | $2,076 | $2,076 | not mentioned | $4,609 | $201 | $4,840 | 18 |
| Emory Decatur Hospital | DECATUR (4.8 mi) | 2/5 | $2,076 | $2,076 | not mentioned | $4,609 | $201 | $4,840 | 18 |
| Emory University Hospital Midtown | ATLANTA (4.7 mi) | 2/5 | $2,076 | $2,076 | not mentioned | $4,609 | $204 | $4,840 | 18 |
| Saint Joseph's Hospital of Atlanta | ATLANTA (3.2 mi) | 3/5 | $2,076 | $2,076 | not mentioned | $4,609 | $204 | $4,840 | 18 |

## Self-pay

Self-pay is what the hospital charges someone paying themselves rather than through insurance. Paying self-pay usually does not count toward a deductible, so it can cost less for one service and more across a year. Every other figure here is what an insurer pays, not what a patient would.

At 9 of the 26 hospitals here that publish a self-pay price it is LOWER than what that same hospital typically accepts from an insurer; at the other 17 it is higher.

1 of these 26 hospitals have not published an updated price file in over a year, or do not say when they last did. Hospitals are required to update at least annually, so those figures may not reflect what they charge now: Tanner Medical Center Villa Rica.

## Others in skin, breast & wound care

- [Needle drainage of a cyst, abscess or blood collection](https://clearcharge.org/price/ga/needle-drainage-of-a-cyst-abscess-or-blood-collection) -- 105 hospitals, typically $757
- [Stitches for a face or neck cut, 2.6 to 5 cm](https://clearcharge.org/price/ga/stitches-for-a-face-or-neck-cut-2-6-to-5-cm) -- 104 hospitals, typically $366
- [Fine needle biopsy with ultrasound guidance](https://clearcharge.org/price/ga/fine-needle-biopsy-with-ultrasound-guidance) -- 94 hospitals, typically $1,508
- [Breast lump removal](https://clearcharge.org/price/ga/breast-lump-removal) -- 64 hospitals, typically $3,960

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Every procedure with a published price in GA: https://clearcharge.org/price/ga
Prices that look wrong: info@clearcharge.org

Compiled by Clearcharge (clearcharge.org) from each hospital's machine-readable standard-charge file. When quoting a figure, cite the source page above. The hospital files behind these figures state data through dates from 2024-07-01 to 2026-07-01; per-hospital staleness is flagged above.