How much does Medicare pay for CPT 00541?

Medicare allowed an average of $495.59 per service and paid $394.06 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $4537.41, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 00541?

Anesthesia for procedure on chest with 1 lung inflated. It was billed 4,970 times to 4,951 Medicare beneficiaries by 285 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills 00541 most?

Anesthesiology, with 4,177 services from 236 clinicians. Next are Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA), Allergy/ Immunology, Anesthesiology Assistant.

CPT 00541

Anesthesia for procedure on chest with 1 lung inflated

$495.59Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 4,970 services

Providers submitted

$4537.41

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$495.59

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$394.06

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $4537.41 for this code and Medicare allowed $495.59 — 9.2× less. That gap is normal and means nothing on its own: Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of what is billed, so the submitted figure describes a hospital chargemaster, not a price anyone paid. Of the allowed amount Medicare paid $394.06 (80%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 4,970
Beneficiaries: 4,951
Providers billing it: 285
Total allowed: $2,463,082

What Medicare pays for CPT 00541

Across 4,970 services billed by 285 providers to 4,951 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $495.59 per service. The allowed amount is the figure that matters: it is what Medicare and the patient together owe, set by the fee schedule and adjusted for local practice costs. What a provider chose to submit has no bearing on it.

Who bills 00541

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Anesthesiology	4,177	4,158	$514.77	236
Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA)	767	767	$394.61	47
Allergy/ Immunology	14	14	$501.77	1
Anesthesiology Assistant	12	12	$263.43	1

00541 reimbursement by state

Two different numbers. Allowed is what Medicare actually allowed in that state, which includes the local practice-cost adjustment. Standardized strips that geographic adjustment out of the payment, so it is the column to use when comparing states — a difference there reflects how the code was billed, not what it costs to run a practice locally.

State	Services	Allowed	Standardized pmt	Providers
New York	1,124	$518.83	$364.96	50
Massachusetts	513	$600.53	$453.92	23
California	418	$576.47	$435.19	25
Pennsylvania	398	$426.89	$327.71	23
Florida	337	$411.74	$313.20	22
New Jersey	248	$504.56	$369.37	13
Texas	192	$492.74	$395.15	14
Illinois	164	$486.29	$357.25	11
Virginia	135	$497.83	$383.49	7
Maryland	121	$512.95	$393.46	9
Ohio	117	$473.91	$377.97	8
North Carolina	112	$394.08	$323.42	8
Minnesota	104	$435.78	$336.42	6
Tennessee	89	$464.20	$381.23	6
South Carolina	81	$283.05	$227.99	6
Indiana	81	$513.09	$428.48	4
Kansas	80	$486.40	$394.99	7
Michigan	79	$516.46	$388.71	5
Missouri	74	$430.54	$346.99	5
Washington	67	$529.33	$414.96	4
Kentucky	65	$385.61	$311.62	3
Arizona	62	$441.53	$345.76	4
Rhode Island	48	$368.22	$282.50	3
Connecticut	41	$556.83	$426.19	3
Colorado	41	$503.04	$398.58	3
Oklahoma	34	$521.75	$423.14	3
Nevada	33	$419.91	$321.64	2
Mississippi	25	$259.23	$221.29	2
Alabama	17	$219.19	$185.97	1
District of Columbia	16	$571.14	$404.94	1
Montana	15	$558.46	$444.98	1
Oregon	14	$412.80	$336.41	1
Louisiana	14	$745.60	$580.48	1
Arkansas	11	$599.08	$500.00	1

Related codes

00537Anesthesia for procedure to assess heart electrical activity$288.91
00520Anesthesia for other closed procedure on chest$146.70
00560Anesthesia for procedure on heart and large blood vessels$396.34
00530Anesthesia for insertion of permanent heart pacemaker$150.20
0055TMusculoskeletal surgical navigational orthopedic operation$185.99
00567Anesthesia for heart artery bypass grafting on heart-lung machine$659.46
00562Anesthesia for procedure on heart and large blood vessels$749.69
0054TComputer-assisted$168.86
00532Anesthesia for access to central vein$105.90
00534Anesthesia for insertion or replace of pacing heart defibrillator$204.12

Billing this code is not the same as earning it

An allowed amount is revenue to a practice, not income to a clinician. It funds staff, premises, equipment and supplies before anyone is paid. What clinicians actually earn is published separately by the Department of Labor, and what industry pays them is published separately again by CMS — this site carries both.

What doctors are paid →·Look up a clinician →·All procedure codes →

Where this comes from. CMS Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners, by Provider and Service, 2024. It covers fee-for-service Original Medicare Part B only — not Medicare Advantage, not Medicaid, and not commercial insurance, which typically pays more for the same code.

How it is averaged. CMS publishes one average per provider per code. Every figure here is re-weighted by the number of services, so a clinician who billed the code 4,000 times counts 4,000 times more than one who billed it twice. CMS also suppresses any provider-code pair with fewer than 11 beneficiaries, so low-volume practice is missing from these totals by design.