How much does Medicare pay for CPT 26480?

Medicare allowed an average of $784.15 per service and paid $624.71 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $4735.32, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 26480?

Transfer of tendon to back of hand. It was billed 9,966 times to 9,240 Medicare beneficiaries by 489 providers in 2024.

Does 26480 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $460.00 in an office setting and $789.54 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 26480 most?

Ambulatory Surgical Center, with 4,368 services from 193 clinicians. Next are Hand Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Physician Assistant.

CPT 26480

Transfer of tendon to back of hand

$784.15Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 9,966 services

Providers submitted

$4735.32

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$784.15

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$624.71

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $4735.32 for this code and Medicare allowed $784.15 — 6.0× 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 $624.71 (80%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $460.00
Hospital / facility: $789.54

The facility rate is higher for this code, which is unusual and generally means the service depends on equipment or staffing a hospital carries. 163 services were billed in an office setting and 9,803 in a facility.

Services: 9,966
Beneficiaries: 9,240
Providers billing it: 489
Total allowed: $7,814,839

What Medicare pays for CPT 26480

Across 9,966 services billed by 489 providers to 9,240 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $784.15 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 26480

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Ambulatory Surgical Center	4,368	4,060	$1317.56	193
Hand Surgery	3,194	2,984	$405.27	164
Orthopedic Surgery	1,640	1,480	$406.32	87
Physician Assistant	511	484	$58.44	31
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery	107	98	$415.83	6
Nurse Practitioner	104	95	$54.50	6
General Surgery	30	28	$465.45	1
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation	12	11	$408.66	1

26480 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	1,163	$809.98	$680.46	55
Virginia	656	$811.30	$679.40	31
Arizona	624	$621.53	$521.81	25
Texas	550	$744.94	$627.33	27
California	442	$1032.41	$640.46	23
Washington	413	$970.74	$750.50	17
Pennsylvania	370	$798.32	$651.55	18
Colorado	366	$680.15	$557.98	16
Indiana	334	$828.26	$682.08	17
Tennessee	320	$802.51	$745.52	17
South Carolina	319	$615.75	$535.03	16
Ohio	315	$928.33	$777.97	18
Maryland	299	$948.66	$759.63	15
North Carolina	260	$891.78	$757.46	14
Iowa	223	$651.14	$557.72	11
Nebraska	220	$578.46	$462.64	8
Alabama	203	$620.85	$574.81	11
Illinois	189	$822.88	$645.68	13
Alaska	176	$647.95	$475.13	6
Massachusetts	170	$706.61	$533.45	10
Wisconsin	169	$799.59	$664.33	8
Arkansas	155	$797.31	$683.10	4
Idaho	151	$741.51	$637.11	6
Montana	144	$823.86	$683.11	8
Georgia	140	$646.57	$545.30	9
Minnesota	136	$918.81	$739.51	7
Kansas	133	$551.81	$459.28	8
Utah	120	$739.65	$613.53	5
Missouri	114	$914.14	$779.06	6
New York	106	$1026.42	$745.16	6
Kentucky	99	$723.84	$668.47	4
North Dakota	98	$702.24	$598.13	5
Louisiana	89	$995.16	$880.94	5
South Dakota	89	$332.87	$274.84	5
New Hampshire	81	$846.88	$663.42	5
Connecticut	77	$1050.14	$804.61	5
Oklahoma	73	$361.17	$316.48	3
Mississippi	66	$782.85	$692.07	3
Michigan	65	$658.52	$577.67	4
New Jersey	64	$1203.13	$916.21	4
New Mexico	46	$1001.94	$839.85	2
Delaware	35	$405.05	$327.53	2
Oregon	32	$1052.98	$809.98	2
Nevada	27	$398.66	$317.61	2
West Virginia	20	$382.92	$309.44	1
Rhode Island	13	$920.24	$732.76	1
Wyoming	12	$435.49	$362.54	1

Related codes

26440Release of tendon of palm or finger$470.62
26442Release of tendon of palm and finger$866.49

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.