How much does Medicare pay for CPT 20606?

Medicare allowed an average of $85.99 per service and paid $64.75 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $331.13, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 20606?

Aspiration and/or injection of fluid from medium joint using ultrasound guidance. It was billed 34,075 times to 24,188 Medicare beneficiaries by 952 providers in 2024.

Does 20606 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $87.88 in an office setting and $48.64 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 20606 most?

Orthopedic Surgery, with 9,499 services from 222 clinicians. Next are Podiatry, Sports Medicine, Hand Surgery.

CPT 20606

Aspiration and/or injection of fluid from medium joint using ultrasound guidance

$85.99Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 34,075 services

Providers submitted

$331.13

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$85.99

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$64.75

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $331.13 for this code and Medicare allowed $85.99 — 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 $64.75 (75%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $87.88
Hospital / facility: $48.64

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. 32,433 services were billed in an office setting and 1,642 in a facility.

Services: 34,075
Beneficiaries: 24,188
Providers billing it: 952
Total allowed: $2,930,109

What Medicare pays for CPT 20606

Across 34,075 services billed by 952 providers to 24,188 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $85.99 per service. That is 1.4 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 20606

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Orthopedic Surgery	9,499	6,985	$90.60	222
Podiatry	5,724	3,566	$88.45	137
Sports Medicine	3,397	2,475	$76.42	129
Hand Surgery	3,217	2,525	$97.61	69
Rheumatology	2,884	2,011	$92.09	76
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation	2,219	1,484	$78.23	76
Family Practice	2,030	1,486	$79.55	77
Physician Assistant	1,825	1,406	$73.83	67
Nurse Practitioner	753	545	$72.50	23
Internal Medicine	627	394	$87.44	18
Diagnostic Radiology	626	485	$60.56	19
Emergency Medicine	256	176	$77.45	9
Pain Management	213	149	$78.74	7
Neurology	205	98	$114.46	4
Interventional Pain Management	149	74	$75.55	4

20606 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	5,738	$91.02	$65.11	93
California	4,061	$93.66	$62.15	98
New York	2,327	$94.78	$62.72	63
Texas	1,733	$82.11	$62.53	52
Arizona	1,368	$76.04	$56.74	36
New Jersey	1,347	$99.12	$67.74	32
Illinois	1,225	$83.47	$61.07	41
Virginia	1,104	$83.82	$60.41	37
Pennsylvania	1,068	$83.19	$62.86	40
South Carolina	1,013	$77.13	$60.49	25
Michigan	881	$94.68	$70.55	27
Massachusetts	881	$95.32	$66.38	22
Maryland	834	$82.68	$57.90	21
Minnesota	762	$82.64	$61.54	31
Ohio	714	$76.99	$59.49	23
Mississippi	686	$78.59	$64.45	18
Wisconsin	684	$74.11	$59.76	23
Tennessee	684	$72.36	$60.17	28
North Carolina	573	$81.97	$66.57	18
Washington	529	$85.51	$56.74	15
Colorado	403	$91.10	$67.54	17
Arkansas	393	$79.49	$63.63	9
Missouri	391	$76.93	$58.44	14
Georgia	367	$82.63	$64.96	14
Louisiana	313	$83.85	$70.11	9
Kansas	308	$75.82	$61.13	12
Indiana	289	$81.26	$64.07	11
Nevada	275	$81.17	$61.18	11
New Hampshire	259	$75.92	$55.55	8
Oklahoma	253	$81.58	$66.27	9
Alabama	253	$71.14	$61.46	10
Utah	249	$67.79	$50.66	10
South Dakota	248	$75.61	$58.09	10
Iowa	246	$76.81	$60.63	12
Oregon	240	$92.94	$69.55	8
Idaho	206	$71.22	$58.81	6
Delaware	166	$86.17	$67.60	3
Rhode Island	150	$81.64	$54.87	5
Connecticut	141	$94.66	$65.28	4
Montana	134	$77.41	$50.91	3
New Mexico	80	$92.13	$68.94	2
Nebraska	75	$71.32	$56.18	4
North Dakota	66	$53.28	$40.03	3
Kentucky	61	$63.98	$45.94	2
Alaska	58	$112.34	$68.82	3
Wyoming	52	$41.94	$29.85	2
West Virginia	48	$40.89	$28.43	1
Vermont	43	$49.13	$37.07	2
Maine	39	$86.56	$65.58	2
Guam	25	$85.38	$66.96	1
Hawaii	19	$66.53	$44.02	1
District of Columbia	13	$97.91	$71.90	1

Related codes

20610Aspiration and/or injection of fluid from large joint$65.03
20611Aspiration and/or injection of fluid large joint$101.93
20600Aspiration and/or injection of fluid from small joint$47.60
20605Aspiration and/or injection of fluid from medium joint$50.73
20604Aspiration and/or injection of fluid from small joint$75.96
20680Removal of deep implant from bone$686.12
20612Aspiration and/or injection of cyst of tendon$59.89

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.