It is the first question most people ask, and it deserves an honest answer. The honest answer is that there is no single price for platelet rich plasma or bone marrow concentrate treatment, because there is no single treatment. What you need depends on what is actually injured, how many structures are involved, and what your imaging shows.
Here is how we handle cost at ProForm MD Sports & Spine, what your insurance does and does not cover, and — just as important — what separates a regenerative injection worth paying for from one that is not.
We could give you a number right now. It would also be close to meaningless.
Two patients can walk in with the same complaint — knee pain — and need completely different treatment. One has early cartilage wear in a single compartment. The other has cartilage wear plus a partial MCL tear and a meniscus injury. Treating those two patients identically would be poor medicine, and quoting them the same price would be a sales tactic.
Each case is unique, and we can discuss cost in detail once you have been evaluated by Dr. Bonner. That conversation happens before anything is scheduled, with a specific plan in front of you — not a guess over the phone.
PRP is a category, not a product. Two injections can both be called platelet rich plasma and be nothing alike.
Many offices draw a small amount of blood and spin it in a bedside centrifuge in the room next to you. It takes a few minutes and produces a modest, variable concentration of platelets. It is quick and inexpensive to produce, and that is reflected in the price.
As a credentialed Regenexx provider, Dr. Bonner uses Regenexx lab processing protocols. More blood is drawn and it is processed in a laboratory to a far higher and more consistent platelet concentration — up to 20 times baseline, and typically around 14 times for the injections we perform. A bedside spin in an office setting generally produces only a few times baseline.
The concentration is also chosen deliberately rather than being whatever the machine happens to produce. A tendon, a ligament and an arthritic joint do not all respond to the same preparation, so the dose is matched to the tissue being treated.
So when one clinic’s price is a fraction of another’s, the usual reason is that you are not being offered the same treatment. The cheapest injection is the most expensive one if it does not work.
This is the part almost nobody asks about, and it matters more than the price. Three things have to be true for a regenerative injection to have a real chance of working.
Nothing is injected until Dr. Bonner has taken a full history, performed a hands-on physical examination, and personally reviewed all of your imaging — your MRI, your X-rays and prior reports, along with diagnostic ultrasound in the office when it is needed. The injection plan comes out of that evaluation. Treating a joint without knowing exactly what is wrong inside it is guesswork, and guesswork is what produces disappointing results.
Every injection is performed under ultrasound or fluoroscopic guidance. Dr. Bonner sees the needle tip and the target structure in real time and confirms placement before anything is delivered. Blind, landmark-based injections — where the needle is placed by feel — miss their intended target far more often than patients realize, and a biologic that lands in the wrong tissue plane cannot do its job no matter how well it was prepared.
A knee is not one structure. Neither is a shoulder or a hip. If your exam and imaging show cartilage wear and an MCL tear and an ACL injury, a single injection into the joint space leaves most of the problem untreated. Each damaged structure is identified and targeted directly and individually. In our experience this is the most common reason a patient tells us that PRP somewhere else did not work for them.
None of this is an upsell. It is what separates a treatment from an injection, and it is the reason we will not price your care before we have examined you.
We are in network with most major insurance plans.
This distinction is important and often misunderstood. Your consultation and evaluation with Dr. Bonner — the visit, the examination, and review of your imaging — is billed through your insurance like any other specialist visit. Diagnostic ultrasound is often, though not always, part of that evaluation, and when it is used it is typically covered as well. In most cases you are responsible only for your plan’s copay or deductible.
That matters, because many regenerative medicine clinics are cash-only from the first phone call. Here you can be properly evaluated by a dual board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation and pain management physician, find out what is actually wrong, and learn what your realistic options are — surgical and non-surgical — using the insurance you already pay for.
The regenerative treatments themselves are not covered by insurance. PRP and bone marrow concentrate are still classified as investigational by essentially every insurer in the United States, so these procedures are paid out of pocket. That is true at every practice in the country. What varies is whether you had to pay simply to find out whether you were a candidate.
Most patients considering PRP or bone marrow concentrate are weighing it against something else — usually a recommended surgery, or against doing nothing.
When patients compare, they often compare the wrong things. A surgical option may be covered by insurance, but the real cost includes your deductible and coinsurance, facility and anesthesia charges, weeks or months of physical therapy, time away from work, and in the case of a joint replacement, an implant with a finite lifespan. A regenerative procedure is paid up front and in full, but it is typically performed in the office, without general anesthesia, without a surgical incision, and without the recovery that comes with one.
We are not going to tell you that injections are always the better choice. Sometimes surgery is the right answer, and Dr. Bonner will tell you so. The purpose of the evaluation is to find out which situation you are actually in.
We accept cash, credit cards and checks for treatment. Payment is arranged after your evaluation, once you and Dr. Bonner have agreed on a specific plan and you know exactly what it includes.
There is no pressure to decide at your visit and no obligation to proceed. Plenty of patients come in for an evaluation, get a clear answer about what is wrong, and decide to wait — or learn that they do not need injections at all. That is a perfectly good outcome.
Still have a question? Call 786-522-4959 or request a consultation.
There is no single price, because there is no single treatment. The cost depends on which structures need to be treated, how many there are, and which biologic is appropriate. Each case is unique, and we discuss it in detail once you have been evaluated by Dr. Bonner, with a specific plan in front of you.
In most cases, yes. We are in network with most major insurance plans, and your evaluation is billed through your insurance like any other specialist visit. Diagnostic ultrasound, when it is needed as part of that evaluation, is typically covered as well. You are typically responsible for your plan’s copay or deductible.
No. Insurers in the United States currently classify these treatments as investigational, so the procedures themselves are paid out of pocket. This is true nationwide and is not specific to our practice.
Cash, credit cards and checks.
Usually because it is not the same preparation. A small blood draw spun in a bedside centrifuge costs very little to produce and yields a lower, more variable platelet concentration than PRP processed under Regenexx laboratory protocols, which can reach up to 20 times baseline platelet concentration — we typically use around 14 times. Price differences generally reflect real differences in what is being injected — and in whether the injection is image guided and targeted to every injured structure.
Bring whatever imaging you already have. Dr. Bonner reviews all of it personally — MRI, X-rays and prior reports — and will perform diagnostic ultrasound in the office if it will add something your existing imaging does not show. If something important is missing, he will tell you what is needed before any treatment is planned.
Yes. Every injection in this practice is performed under ultrasound or fluoroscopic guidance so that placement into the intended structure is confirmed in real time.
The next step is not a price quote. It is an evaluation — billed through your insurance in most cases — that tells you what is wrong, whether you are a candidate for regenerative treatment, and what a realistic plan looks like. Cost is part of that conversation, attached to a real plan rather than a phone estimate.
Request a consultation or call 786-522-4959.
