How much does Medicare pay for CPT 29280?

Medicare allowed an average of $29.83 per service and paid $23.39 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $89.07, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 29280?

Placement of strapping to hand or finger. It was billed 1,605 times to 718 Medicare beneficiaries by 40 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills 29280 most?

Occupational Therapist in Private Practice, with 672 services from 16 clinicians. Next are Orthopedic Surgery, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Hand Surgery.

CPT 29280

Placement of strapping to hand or finger

$29.83Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 1,605 services

Providers submitted

$89.07

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$29.83

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$23.39

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $89.07 for this code and Medicare allowed $29.83 — 3.0× 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 $23.39 (78%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 1,605
Beneficiaries: 718
Providers billing it: 40
Total allowed: $47,877

What Medicare pays for CPT 29280

Across 1,605 services billed by 40 providers to 718 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $29.83 per service. That is 2.2 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 29280

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Occupational Therapist in Private Practice	672	243	$30.42	16
Orthopedic Surgery	322	236	$25.24	11
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation	307	34	$33.17	2
Hand Surgery	134	116	$29.51	6
Physical Therapist in Private Practice	121	40	$30.97	2
Physician Assistant	25	25	$26.88	2
Allergy/ Immunology	24	24	$31.28	1

29280 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
California	644	$30.55	$21.97	16
New York	493	$33.31	$22.88	9
Michigan	168	$22.32	$15.82	2
Florida	61	$28.18	$20.66	3
Texas	49	$27.71	$20.98	2
Washington	46	$30.60	$22.39	1
Pennsylvania	32	$28.19	$23.43	1
Oregon	31	$9.84	$21.97	1
Massachusetts	25	$27.80	$21.56	2
New Jersey	25	$33.65	$21.99	1
Virginia	20	$26.41	$18.79	1
Tennessee	11	$24.69	$21.36	1

Related codes

29200Placement of strapping to chest$25.73
29240Placement of strapping to shoulder$27.34
29260Placement of strapping to elbow or wrist$25.73

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.