How much does Medicare pay for CPT 17250?

Medicare allowed an average of $51.54 per service and paid $40.55 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $190.54, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 17250?

Application of chemical to stop tissue regrowth in wound. It was billed 151,894 times to 44,067 Medicare beneficiaries by 1,380 providers in 2024.

Does 17250 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $63.97 in an office setting and $27.84 in a facility. The office rate is generally higher because the practice supplies the room, staff and equipment out of that single payment; in a hospital those are billed separately by the facility.

Which specialty bills 17250 most?

General Surgery, with 34,538 services from 172 clinicians. Next are Family Practice, Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant.

CPT 17250

Application of chemical to stop tissue regrowth in wound

$51.54Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 151,894 services

Providers submitted

$190.54

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$51.54

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$40.55

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $190.54 for this code and Medicare allowed $51.54 — 3.7× 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 $40.55 (79%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $63.97
Hospital / facility: $27.84

The office rate is higher because the practice supplies the room, staff and equipment out of that payment. In a hospital the facility bills those separately, so the clinician's share is smaller — the total cost to Medicare is usually higher, not lower. 99,658 services were billed in an office setting and 52,236 in a facility.

Services: 151,894
Beneficiaries: 44,067
Providers billing it: 1,380
Total allowed: $7,828,617

What Medicare pays for CPT 17250

Across 151,894 services billed by 1,380 providers to 44,067 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $51.54 per service. That is 3.4 services per beneficiary, so this is a code patients typically receive more than once. 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 17250

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
General Surgery	34,538	6,494	$47.07	172
Family Practice	32,088	9,441	$51.97	203
Nurse Practitioner	31,934	9,926	$43.04	398
Physician Assistant	14,059	3,224	$56.63	100
Podiatry	9,652	4,875	$73.43	124
Internal Medicine	5,170	1,808	$45.06	49
General Practice	4,116	1,099	$62.28	24
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery	4,044	903	$54.56	38
Dermatology	3,085	1,864	$71.51	74
Emergency Medicine	2,439	789	$37.17	35
Obstetrics & Gynecology	1,726	717	$70.23	33
Anesthesiology	1,099	94	$49.67	3
Gastroenterology	1,086	118	$38.40	2
Otolaryngology	1,059	253	$92.97	9
Vascular Surgery	910	377	$46.04	14

17250 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
Florida	45,200	$46.20	$35.43	212
California	32,849	$59.05	$39.93	185
New York	11,058	$70.13	$46.14	106
Texas	8,984	$51.97	$40.38	80
Louisiana	7,415	$42.06	$34.72	30
Massachusetts	3,413	$47.18	$32.19	44
North Carolina	3,120	$45.09	$34.86	45
Virginia	3,016	$57.07	$42.67	42
Pennsylvania	2,929	$52.51	$38.63	58
Georgia	2,793	$39.53	$31.01	35
New Jersey	2,603	$60.57	$41.46	51
Illinois	2,466	$52.86	$38.28	40
Indiana	2,429	$45.02	$36.16	31
Maryland	2,292	$56.88	$38.92	32
Ohio	1,858	$52.94	$41.71	48
Missouri	1,836	$50.09	$37.92	26
South Carolina	1,779	$45.40	$36.13	30
Tennessee	1,377	$44.86	$36.50	27
Wisconsin	1,287	$42.05	$32.41	21
Kentucky	1,280	$44.82	$35.83	21
Washington	1,246	$42.72	$30.44	20
Oregon	1,182	$41.56	$33.70	6
Mississippi	1,022	$48.58	$41.33	14
Michigan	895	$40.84	$32.60	15
Oklahoma	708	$54.39	$44.36	12
Iowa	690	$41.49	$34.49	15
Arizona	570	$59.76	$45.19	17
Connecticut	558	$42.31	$29.16	13
New Hampshire	533	$33.51	$25.14	11
Alabama	494	$48.80	$40.02	6
Nevada	470	$69.47	$34.57	4
Rhode Island	467	$47.55	$33.50	5
Arkansas	444	$43.47	$36.80	8
Nebraska	377	$29.82	$22.90	10
Kansas	283	$36.84	$31.03	9
Colorado	265	$43.01	$33.03	4
West Virginia	228	$42.75	$31.24	3
Minnesota	212	$41.36	$31.42	9
Northern Mariana Islands	182	$56.73	$46.85	1
Idaho	163	$26.23	$20.98	4
Maine	146	$38.46	$28.92	6
Utah	143	$54.79	$42.02	4
New Mexico	115	$30.32	$22.96	4
Montana	85	$30.08	$24.00	2
Delaware	84	$67.43	$54.02	3
North Dakota	69	$44.95	$29.38	2
South Dakota	68	$40.42	$29.70	3
Guam	64	$27.03	$19.99	1
Alaska	44	$38.87	$23.11	1
XX	40	$80.52	$59.01	1
Vermont	28	$30.30	$21.66	1
District of Columbia	19	$76.88	$52.18	1
Wyoming	16	$80.05	$63.97	1

Related codes

17262Destruction of cancer skin growth of trunk$148.27
17261Destruction of cancer skin growth of trunk$117.97
17272Destruction of cancer skin growth of scalp$154.94
17282Destruction of cancer skin growth of face$172.77
17281Destruction of cancer skin growth of face$143.74
17263Destruction of cancer skin growth of trunk$169.10
17271Destruction of cancer skin growth of scalp$126.74
17280Destruction of cancer skin growth of face$100.61
17260Destruction of cancer skin growth of trunk$73.83
17283Destruction of cancer skin growth of face$211.66
17273Destruction of cancer skin growth of scalp$177.31
17270Destruction of cancer skin growth of scalp$99.23

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.