A written quote shows what your joint care will cost

The quoted price needs to cover the whole visit

Ask whether the amount includes the exam, preparation, follow-up, and any image used to guide care. Find out whether it covers one joint or both. For a series of visits, request the total instead of only the opening charge. Get the terms for a cancellation or an early stop.

A price can't tell you how well treatment will work, since joints, causes, and health histories differ. Be wary of a firm success rate that isn't tied to people with your problem. A careful office will say what research supports and where doubt remains.

Travel has a cost too, including fuel, time, and help from a driver when needed. Find out each visit's length and any limits afterward. These details matter more than a sales discount.

Insurance may cover the exam but not the treatment

Biologic therapies are treatments made from blood, bone marrow, fat, or donated tissue, and people often cover the full price themselves. An exam, X-ray, physical therapy, medicine, brace, or surgery may use separate insurance benefits. One answer from the plan may not apply to every charge.

Ask the office for the service name and its billing code, the short tag used on the bill, then read both to the insurer when you call from home. Your deductible is the money you must pay each year before the plan starts paying its share. Also ask whether the plan must approve the service before the visit.

An office can accept your insurance even when this care isn't covered, so ask the plan to send its answer in writing. Before paying, compare the full quote with copays and the time needed for exercise or therapy. Read the cancellation terms again at home.

Sources

1. A cross-sectional study contacted 273 of 317 US centres offering direct-to-consumer stem-cell therapy, posing as a 57-year-old man with knee osteoarthritis. The mean advertised price of a unilateral same-day stem-cell knee injection was $5,156 (SD $2,446), and centres claimed a mean clinical efficacy of 82% (SD 9.6%) - a figure with no support in the published evidence. The gap between the quoted number and the trial data is the single most useful thing a patient can be told before a consultation.

   Piuzzi NS, et al. — The Stem-Cell Market for the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Patient Perspective.. The journal of knee surgery, 2018. DOI: 10.1055/s-0037-1604443.

2. Medicare's National Coverage Determination covers autologous platelet-rich plasma ONLY for chronic non-healing diabetic, pressure or venous WOUNDS, and only under Coverage with Evidence Development inside an approved clinical research study. There is no Medicare coverage pathway for PRP as a treatment for osteoarthritis or any other joint indication, which is why these injections are quoted as cash prices.

   Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — Autologous Platelet-rich Plasma (Coverage with Evidence Development). CMS.gov, 2012.

3. In January 2025 the Federal Trade Commission banned the co-founders of a stem cell institute and their companies from marketing stem cell treatments and ordered them to pay more than $5.1 million in refunds and civil penalties. Deceptive EFFICACY ADVERTISING, not merely unapproved manufacturing, is independently actionable - the FTC polices what a clinic promises as well as what it injects.

   US Federal Trade Commission — Stem Cell Institute Co-Founders and Companies Banned from Marketing Stem Cell Treatments and Ordered to Pay More Than $5.1 Million for Refunds and Civil Penalties. FTC Press Release, 2025.

4. The study that first mapped the scale of the US direct-to-consumer stem cell industry, finding widespread internet marketing of unapproved stem cell interventions by businesses based in the UNITED STATES - previously assumed to be a phenomenon of countries with lax medical regulation - and concluding that regulators must better oversee this marketplace.

   Turner L, et al. — Selling Stem Cells in the USA: Assessing the Direct-to-Consumer Industry.. Cell stem cell, 2016. DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2016.06.007.

5. Roughly 14 million people in the United States have symptomatic knee osteoarthritis, and more than half of them are under 65 - with nearly 2 million under 45. The market for a cash-pay procedure sold as an alternative to joint replacement is largely working-age people who are being told they are too young for surgery.

   Deshpande BR, et al. — Number of Persons With Symptomatic Knee Osteoarthritis in the US: Impact of Race and Ethnicity, Age, Sex, and Obesity.. Arthritis care & research, 2016. DOI: 10.1002/acr.22897.