Ask a prosthetics manufacturer what a bionic leg costs and you get a range or a referral. Ask Medicare and you get a number to the cent. The January 2026 DMEPOS fee schedule — a public CSV file anyone can download from CMS — sets the allowed amount for every component of a lower-limb prosthesis, and it is the only price for this category that is published, dated and reproducible.
We pulled the 2024, 2025 and 2026 files and extracted all 187 lower-limb (L5) codes. Everything below is from that file.
What a robotic knee bills at
| HCPCS | Component | 2026 allowed (median state) | Range across states |
|---|---|---|---|
| **L5856** | Microprocessor knee, swing **and** stance control | **$29,407.82** | $28,851.23 – $31,736.36 |
| **L5858** | Microprocessor knee, stance phase only | **$22,885.05** | $22,336.47 – $24,570.15 |
| **L5859** | Powered knee, active flexion/extension | **$17,866.14** | $17,437.90 – $19,181.69 |
| **L5857** | Microprocessor knee, swing phase only | **$10,544.80** | $10,237.55 – $11,261.23 |
| **L5973** | Powered ankle-foot, dorsiflexion/plantarflexion | **$21,297.95** | $20,916.61 – $23,785.15 |
| **L5987** | Shank and foot with vertical loading pylon | **$8,858.10** | $8,645.70 – $9,510.31 |
| **L5991** | Osseointegration connector | **$11,755.04** | single national price |
| L5828 | Fluid/pneumatic knee, swing and stance (non-electronic) | $3,628.49 | $3,457.19 – $4,956.82 |
| L5976 | Energy-storing foot | $743.14 | $685.61 – $1,202.12 |
The national ceiling and floor for L5856 are $35,259.71 and $26,444.78 — exactly 1.20× and 0.90× the underlying fee, as with every other code in the file.
The counterintuitive part: the *powered* knee bills 39% less
L5856 covers a knee that senses load and modulates hydraulic resistance — the C-Leg class. L5859 covers a knee with a motor that can actively extend the joint and lift a user up a stair. The motorised one is the more capable machine, and Medicare allows $17,866.14 against the microprocessor knee's $29,407.82 — 39.2% less.
Two mechanically similar codes on a spec sheet do not have to be near each other on a fee schedule, and here they are not. Anyone reasoning from "more electronics equals higher billing" will get this backwards.
The same inversion shows up at the ankle. A powered ankle-foot (L5973, $21,297.95) bills 28.7× an energy-storing carbon foot (L5976, $743.14) — a bigger multiple than the knee's own electronic premium.
What a complete leg bills at
A prosthesis is billed as a base code plus additions. Two like-for-like transfemoral (above-knee) builds, using the 2026 median state allowance for each line:
Microprocessor build — $42,028.27
L5321 base with socket and endoskeletal system $4,399.13 · L5920 alignable system $649.58 · L5950 ultra-light material $1,023.25 · L5679 socket insert $764.25 · L5652 suction suspension $533.75 · L5856 microprocessor knee $29,407.82 · L5981 flex-walk foot $3,954.98 · L5964 flexible cover $1,295.51
Non-microprocessor build — $13,037.10
Identical socket, suspension and frame lines · L5828 fluid knee $3,628.49 · L5976 energy-storing foot $743.14
Going electronic multiplies the leg by 3.22×, and 70.0% of the microprocessor build is the knee alone. Everything below the knee — socket, suspension, alignment, cover — is the same money either way.
For comparison, the upper-limb equivalent we costed from the same file in August 2026 came to $44,460.29 for a complete transradial myoelectric arm. A robotic leg and a robotic arm bill at almost the same number.
What the patient pays
Medicare Part B pays 80%. The standard 20% coinsurance on these builds is $8,405.65 for the microprocessor leg and $2,607.42 for the mechanical one, before any secondary insurance. That figure appears in no manufacturer brochure.
Two things the file says that the brochures do not
Almost every lower-limb code moved by the same factor two years running. Of 183 comparable L5 codes, 182 rose by exactly ×1.024 from 2024 to 2025, and 181 by exactly ×1.020 from 2025 to 2026 — from a $48.61 pair of joint covers to a $29,407.82 knee. This is indexation, not repricing: the schedule is not reacting to any product launch. We found the identical pattern in the upper-limb codes, and it now holds across 332 codes in two body regions.
Only two lower-limb codes have a single national price. L5991 (osseointegration connector, $11,755.04) and L5783 ($3,150.07) are identical in all 53 jurisdictions; every other L5 code carries 6 to 14 regional tiers. Newer codes get gap-filled once, nationally; older ones still carry decades-old regional history. The spread is small either way — L5856 varies just 3.51% across the continental US, with Puerto Rico $2,885 above the cheapest states.
Related: our bionic hand and myoelectric arm price guide, our medical exoskeleton price guide, and the exoskeleton robot category page.
*Source: CMS DMEPOS fee schedule public files, January 2024, January 2025 and January 2026 (DMEPOS26_JAN.csv). Figures are Medicare allowed amounts, not manufacturer list prices, not what a private insurer pays and not cash price. Which specific products may be billed under a given code is decided separately — see our note on PDAC code verification.*
