a procedureKnee arthroscopy

also: keyhole knee surgery · arthroscopic partial meniscectomy · meniscus surgery · knee scope

Patients say keyhole. Surgeons name what was done through the keyhole — meniscectomy, meniscal repair, chondroplasty, loose body removal — because the camera is the access, not the operation.

A camera and instruments go into the knee through two or three small portals. Torn meniscus is trimmed or stitched, loose bodies are removed, roughened cartilage is smoothed, the joint is washed out. It is usually a day case or one night, and it is the cheapest of the knee operations on this site's price table by a factor of three.

How long it takes

The numbers behind this

	Days
In hospital	1.0
Before a flight	—
Back to ordinary use	—

Root. arthroscopy: Greek arthron, a joint, plus skopein, to look. Meniscus is Greek meniskos, a little moon, for the crescent of cartilage. Meniscectomy adds ektome, a cutting out.
A diagnostic arthroscopy looks; a therapeutic one cuts. Australia's schedule separates the two, and pays for the look only where the diagnosis was undetermined beforehand. Trade practice

The story Cited

Arthroscopy is the procedure whose indications moved under it. Trade practice — trial evidence on arthroscopy for the worn knee has been argued over for two decades, and the argument reached patients not as a headline but as a payer's fine print: the schedule kept paying, and narrowed whom it paid for.

Australia's schedule shows what that looks like in an item number. Item 49572 pays $795.05 as at 1 July 2026 for partial meniscectomy for an atraumatic tear — and excludes, in its own wording, a service performed for the purpose of treating osteoarthritis. Item 49570 pays for a diagnostic arthroscopy only where the pre-procedure diagnosis is undetermined. The payer did not ban the operation; it defined the patient.

The package market has no such clause. Bumrungrad prices arthroscopic knee meniscus surgery — repair or resection, with debridement, chondroplasty, synovectomy and microfracture named in the same package — at 243,300 baht with one night, marked down from 270,300. Practice Plus Group lists knee arthroscopy at £5,899 in England, the same figure as its meniscus surgery line. Nordorthopaedics advertises knee arthroscopy "from 1.500 € / 1.250 £", the cheapest orthopaedic price this batch read.

Inference — a patient reading only package pages would not learn that the indication is contested. The dispute lives in the payer's fine print, and the fine print does not travel.

How it works Trade practice

General or spinal anaesthesia, twenty to forty-five minutes of surgery, two or three portals, and home the same day or the next. Walking is immediate and unaided within days for a simple trim; a meniscal repair, as against a resection, is followed by weeks of restricted weight-bearing and a brace, and the two are priced identically on most of the pages read for this record.

Today Cited

As of 16 September 2026 knee arthroscopy prices on this site run from an advertised Lithuanian floor of 1,500 euro through £5,899 in England to 243,300 baht in Bangkok with one night included, against an Australian schedule fee of $795.05 that carries a written indication test the package prices do not.

Notes

This page describes an operation, the argument about when it is warranted, and the prices published for it. It is not clinical advice.

What it costs where anyone publishes a price

a provider's package pricea state tariff or what a payer refundsa list price, an estimate or an advertised rangelogarithmic scale, US$

6 published prices for this procedure, across 4 countries.

The 6 prices behind this chart

Dollar figures are the published price put through one dated rate table; the published currency and date are in the next columns.

Country	Kind	US$	As published	Dated	Source
Australia	tariff	567	795 AUD	2026-07-01	page
Lithuania	quoted-range	1,731	1,500 EUR	2026-09-16	page
Thailand	quoted-range	3,000	3,000–7,000 USD	2026-09-17	page
Thailand	package	7,308	243,300 THB	2026-09-16	page
Thailand	package	8,170	272,000 THB	2026-09-16	page
United Kingdom	list	7,950	5,899 GBP	2026-09-16	page

Every price this directory has read, for every procedure, sits together on the prices page.

Published prices Cited

Each is a number read off a page on the date named, in the currency the provider bills in. Dollars are that number through one dated rate table.

795 AUD ≈ US$567

tariff · Australia · Australia · for Knee arthroscopy

Includes.

the medical service described in item 49572: partial meniscectomy of knee, by arthroscopic means, for atraumatic meniscus tear

Excludes.

a service for the purpose of treating osteoarthritis, which the item excludes in its own wording
hospital accommodation and theatre
the anaesthetist's own items
any amount charged above the schedule fee

Published price dated 2026-07-01 · dollars at the rate of Wed, 16 Sep 2026 · the page it was read from · Medicare Benefits Schedule item 49572, fee last updated 1 July 2026; 75% benefit $596.30. The item is the clearest example in this batch of a payer writing a contested indication into the price itself.

1,500 EUR ≈ US$1,731

quoted-range · Kaunas · Lithuania · for Knee arthroscopy

Published price dated 2026-09-16 · dollars at the rate of Wed, 16 Sep 2026 · the page it was read from · advertised as "from 1.500 € / 1.250 £", the lowest orthopaedic figure read for this batch; the page states no inclusion list.

243,300 THB ≈ US$7,308

package · Bumrungrad International Hospital · for Knee arthroscopy

Includes.

arthroscopic surgery to repair or resect the meniscus
debridement, abrasive chondroplasty, synovectomy
cartilage procedures such as microfracture
1 night of hospital stay

Published price dated 2026-09-16 · dollars at the rate of Wed, 16 Sep 2026 · the page it was read from · listed at 243,300 THB against 270,300 THB under a campaign the page labels "Special Campaign Discount Common Procedures". Repair and resection — two operations with different recoveries — are priced as one package. The per-package exclusion list sits on the package's own detail page, not read for this record.

5,899 GBP ≈ US$7,950

list · England · United Kingdom · for Knee arthroscopy

Includes.

pre-operative nurse review
prescriptions, dressings and equipment
anaesthetic
any overnight stay required
physiotherapy
pathology and histology needed whilst admitted
any post-operative appointments required
a named knee consultant from start to finish

Excludes.

the initial consultation, listed separately at £145

Published price dated 2026-09-16 · dollars at the rate of Wed, 16 Sep 2026 · the page it was read from · knee arthroscopy and knee repair — meniscus surgery are both listed at £5,899 on the same page, which prices the camera rather than what is done through it.

2 more published prices for this procedure sit on other records — all of them together are on the prices page.

The particulars

family	orthopaedic
setting	day-case
anaesthesia	general
region	Everywhere
stay days	1
about those numbers	One night is the stay named on Bumrungrad's arthroscopic knee meniscus package. No page read for this record publishes a recovery span or a flying interval for keyhole knee surgery, and the CDC's ten-day figure quoted elsewhere in this batch is guidance for chest and abdominal surgery, so it is not carried onto a day case here. (2026-09-16) · source
links	MBS item 49572
confidence	medium · needs verification · updated 2026-09-16

Not to be confused with

Anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction — Both are keyhole; a scope trims or repairs cartilage, a reconstruction replaces a ligament with a graft, and the Bangkok packages differ by 35,700 baht.

What it connects to

a procedureAnterior cruciate ligament reconstructionThe bigger operation through the same portals, and three times the price.and of this page it says: The smaller operation done through the same portals, and often in the same anaesthetic.a procedureTotal knee replacementWhat the arthritic knee ends up having when the keyhole work does not hold.a hospitalBumrungrad International HospitalPackages repair and resection of the meniscus at one price with one night.a countryThailandWhere the Bangkok arthroscopy package on this page is sold.a countryUnited KingdomWhere the £5,899 self-pay price on this page is sold.a countryLithuaniaWhere the cheapest advertised orthopaedic price in this batch comes from.a countryAustraliaWhose schedule writes the disputed indication into the item's own wording.a wordDay caseWhat this operation usually is, and what a one-night package quietly is not.and of this page it says: An operation that is usually this at home and is sold abroad with a night in it.a wordPrior authorisationThe gate a payer uses where the indication is contested.and of this page it says: The operation where a payer wrote a contested indication into the schedule itself.a long oneIs it cheaperThe question a day case answers worst, once the flight is counted.

Pages that point here

a hospital · on this pageBangkok HospitalSold here at a fixed price with one ward night counted in and the implant left out.

Sources

Sports Medicine & Joint Center — package list — Bumrungrad International Hospital · link (read 2026-09-16)
Private knee surgery and treatment — self-pay price list — Practice Plus Group · link (read 2026-09-16)
Orthopaedic Surgery Prices — Nordorthopaedics Clinic, Kaunas · link (read 2026-09-16)
MBS item 49572 — partial meniscectomy of knee by arthroscopic means — Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing · link (read 2026-09-16)

Where it came from: Cited a source named here · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Trade practice how the trade works, hedged · Inference this project's own reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.

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