A written price makes the full treatment cost clear

The written total needs every expected charge

One total is easier to judge than several loose prices. It'll include the treatment charge and every planned return visit. Don't forget to ask whether the clinic expects more than one treatment. You'll then compare the same care from one office to another.

A payment plan can add interest or other fees. Those charges shouldn't be left out of the written total. Check whether money is due before treatment begins. You shouldn't have to guess what the final bill includes.

Your insurance company and the clinic may quote different amounts

Ask your insurance company whether the visit or treatment is covered. Then ask how much of your deductible remains this year. A deductible is the amount you pay before the company starts paying for covered care. Also ask whether it limits the number of physical therapy visits.

Non-surgical regenerative care at QC Kinetix includes blood prepared in the clinic and put into the sore joint after medical providers—the trained clinic staff—examine you. It may require cash payment. Compare its written price with physical therapy your insurance pays for, braces, medicines or surgery. Keep both answers until every charge matches.

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.

6. FDA states plainly that no stem cell, exosome, stromal vascular fraction, umbilical cord blood, Wharton's jelly or amniotic-fluid product has been approved for the treatment of ANY orthopedic condition - it names osteoarthritis, tendonitis, disc disease, tennis elbow, back pain, hip pain, knee pain, neck pain and shoulder pain individually. The only FDA-approved stem cell products in the United States are cord-blood-derived blood-forming stem cells for disorders of the hematopoietic system, and there are currently no FDA-approved exosome products.

   US Food and Drug Administration, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research — Consumer Alert on Regenerative Medicine Products Including Stem Cells and Exosomes. FDA, 2020.