How much does Medicare pay for CPT 20550?

Medicare allowed an average of $50.46 per service and paid $37.31 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $197.03, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 20550?

Injection into tendon or ligament. It was billed 647,873 times to 405,945 Medicare beneficiaries by 10,427 providers in 2024.

Does 20550 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $51.11 in an office setting and $32.44 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 20550 most?

Hand Surgery, with 159,042 services from 1,412 clinicians. Next are Orthopedic Surgery, Podiatry, Physician Assistant.

CPT 20550

Injection into tendon or ligament

$50.46Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 647,873 services

Providers submitted

$197.03

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$50.46

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$37.31

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $197.03 for this code and Medicare allowed $50.46 — 3.9× 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 $37.31 (74%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $51.11
Hospital / facility: $32.44

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. 625,316 services were billed in an office setting and 22,557 in a facility.

Services: 647,873
Beneficiaries: 405,945
Providers billing it: 10,427
Total allowed: $32,691,672

What Medicare pays for CPT 20550

Across 647,873 services billed by 10,427 providers to 405,945 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $50.46 per service. That is 1.6 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 20550

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Hand Surgery	159,042	109,977	$52.07	1,412
Orthopedic Surgery	155,949	111,161	$51.62	2,561
Podiatry	144,584	86,868	$55.36	3,280
Physician Assistant	54,588	36,659	$41.57	1,148
Nurse Practitioner	24,399	9,524	$37.32	316
Internal Medicine	22,189	4,236	$45.10	110
Rheumatology	17,102	9,062	$48.36	254
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation	15,374	7,232	$47.83	255
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery	12,845	8,836	$50.59	236
Family Practice	10,675	6,609	$50.74	262
Sports Medicine	10,190	7,293	$49.99	300
Pain Management	4,606	1,606	$46.02	57
Anesthesiology	4,044	633	$33.78	28
General Surgery	2,882	1,990	$50.67	40
Interventional Pain Management	2,723	1,149	$45.97	44

20550 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	78,983	$50.71	$36.34	965
California	76,060	$51.17	$34.36	827
New York	46,307	$59.64	$38.97	609
Texas	36,503	$50.73	$37.39	710
New Jersey	32,242	$59.22	$40.25	437
Pennsylvania	30,760	$51.84	$37.30	518
Arizona	27,071	$42.94	$30.83	293
Illinois	21,607	$51.64	$36.01	379
Virginia	21,048	$49.64	$35.71	338
North Carolina	19,386	$46.96	$35.05	359
Massachusetts	18,775	$50.41	$34.30	265
Georgia	17,719	$49.15	$36.04	346
Ohio	17,455	$45.50	$33.72	361
Maryland	16,849	$54.10	$37.18	251
South Carolina	13,516	$49.14	$37.13	228
Tennessee	12,701	$46.97	$36.91	259
Missouri	12,411	$43.84	$32.29	182
Michigan	11,826	$50.88	$35.91	247
Louisiana	9,669	$42.49	$33.45	152
Indiana	9,447	$47.66	$36.78	218
Washington	9,446	$51.43	$35.15	188
Colorado	7,505	$52.55	$37.61	171
Connecticut	7,384	$56.83	$39.00	127
Alabama	6,601	$46.06	$36.82	127
Kentucky	5,913	$48.29	$37.08	135
Wisconsin	5,859	$45.23	$34.67	158
Mississippi	5,805	$47.15	$37.93	112
Oregon	5,055	$48.51	$35.23	99
Nevada	5,042	$49.08	$36.25	79
Iowa	5,039	$46.40	$35.18	107
Minnesota	4,839	$44.22	$32.45	133
Oklahoma	4,772	$48.81	$37.98	109
Arkansas	4,625	$47.41	$37.43	99
Kansas	4,535	$45.41	$34.99	87
Utah	3,574	$46.99	$33.46	89
Delaware	3,557	$48.78	$36.01	48
Nebraska	3,252	$43.27	$33.53	61
New Hampshire	3,107	$48.21	$34.45	60
New Mexico	2,978	$48.80	$35.95	60
Montana	2,247	$47.97	$33.28	51
Idaho	2,239	$41.91	$31.65	60
Rhode Island	2,184	$47.78	$35.82	47
South Dakota	2,138	$39.62	$30.26	55
Hawaii	1,622	$49.85	$35.19	22
West Virginia	1,462	$43.18	$31.84	41
District of Columbia	1,450	$50.62	$33.53	18
Maine	1,158	$47.55	$34.51	34
Wyoming	1,081	$46.10	$33.65	27
North Dakota	1,077	$37.77	$28.12	26
Vermont	791	$38.23	$27.44	19
Alaska	671	$58.38	$35.51	17
Puerto Rico	337	$51.82	$39.03	13
Guam	145	$57.17	$38.60	2
U.S. Virgin Islands	28	$52.93	$40.11	1
AE	20	$62.00	$40.04	1

Related codes

20553Injection of trigger points$52.41
20552Injection of trigger points$44.76
20551Injection into tendon at attachment to bone or muscle$41.92
20526Injection of carpal tunnel$88.67
20527Injection of medication into palm$76.06

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.