BAHA vs Cochlear Implant Cost: Codes, 2026 Medicare Rates and Hospital Prices

The bill, line by line: what each implant adds

Both devices reach you through several separate bills, and comparing them only works line by line:

• The surgery, billed by the surgeon: code 69714, 69716 or 69717 for a bone-anchored implant, code 69930 for a cochlear implant.
• The facility, billed by the hospital outpatient department or the ambulatory surgery center under the same procedure code.
• The device, which a hospital file may list on its own line: L8690 for a complete bone-anchored device, L8614 for a complete cochlear device.
• Follow-up visits: the cochlear implant has its own programming codes, 92603 for the first visit and 92604 for later ones.

A quote that gives one total without these lines can't be compared with another. The sections below give the public figure we found for each line.

What Medicare pays the hospital or surgery center

CMS publishes one national rate per procedure code for hospital outpatient departments (the OPPS file) and another for ambulatory surgery centers (the ASC file). For October 2026:

• Cochlear implant, 69930: $33,686.28 in a hospital outpatient department, $29,768.66 in a surgery center.
• Bone-anchored implant, 69714: $13,116.76 and $10,487.38.
• Bone-anchored implant, 69716: $13,116.76 and $10,620.42.
• Bone-anchored implant, 69717: $7,413.38 and $5,663.31.

These are unadjusted national rates. Your own share depends on your coverage. They are the closest public answer to "how much does the hospital side cost", and the gap between the two device families is large on this line.

What Medicare pays the surgeon, and the programming visits

The surgeon's bill follows the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. Our calculation from the October 2026 CMS file gives these national facility amounts, before the deductible and coinsurance:

• 69714: $437.55
• 69716: $544.43
• 69717: $492.66
• 69930: $1,059.81

A cochlear implant also brings programming visits. Code 92603, the first one, is $95.86 in a facility and $145.63 in an office; code 92604, for later visits, is $53.44 and $87.51. Count these visits on the cochlear implant side when you add up the first year.

Prices posted in hospital price files

Hospitals must post a machine-readable file of their standard charges under 45 CFR 180. We copied the discounted cash price, the amount a hospital posts for a patient paying cash, from two systems. The source line under the table links each hospital's price transparency page and file; amounts are removed on written request.

Allegheny Health Network, Pittsburgh (files dated April 14, 2026). Allegheny General Hospital posts $528.96 for 69714, $416.16 for 69716 and $810.48 for 69930. West Penn Hospital posts $595.08, $468.18 and $911.79 for the same codes. These lines are far below the Medicare facility rates above, and the billing class field is blank on these lines, so treat them as one component, not a total.

St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, Phoenix (file dated February 28, 2026). The device lines: $5,039.73 for L8690, "Auditory osseointegrated device, includes all internal and external components", and $11,121.17 for L8614, "Cochlear device, includes all internal and external components". The file posts 12 amounts for L8690 and 23 for L8614; the figure shown is the first discounted cash amount on each code's record. Ask the hospital which of its amounts applies to you.

How the FDA lists each device

The two families sit in different FDA databases. The bone-anchored side has a premarket notification: clearance K202048, decided February 23, 2021, covers the "Cochlear Baha 6 Max Sound Processor, Cochlear Baha Fitting Software 6, Cochlear Baha Smart App". Its decision is "Substantially Equivalent", and its product code, LXB, is classified as "Hearing Aid, Bone Conduction", a class 2 device under 21 CFR 874.3302.

Cochlear implant systems appear in the premarket approval (PMA) database instead: P970051 for the Nucleus 24 Cochlear Implant System and P000025 for the MED-EL Cochlear Implant System. A clearance or an approval says what may be marketed. It isn't a rating, and it doesn't say which device suits a given person.

Medicare coverage: two different rules

Coverage isn't decided by the same document for the two devices. For cochlear implants, Medicare's national coverage determination lists among its criteria "bilateral moderate-to-profound sensorineural hearing impairment with limited benefit from appropriate hearing (or vibrotactile) aids". The bone-anchored implant falls under Medicare's prosthetic device rules instead; our BAHA hearing aids page quotes that rule and the cost share. Meeting one rule says nothing about the other, so ask your plan about the exact code before comparing prices. Our page on single-sided deafness and cochlear implants covers the one-ear case.