How much does Medicare pay for CPT 29520?

Medicare allowed an average of $34.88 per service and paid $27.33 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $71.63, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 29520?

Placement of strapping to hip. It was billed 14,495 times to 2,551 Medicare beneficiaries by 74 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills 29520 most?

Physical Therapist in Private Practice, with 9,387 services from 51 clinicians. Next are Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Physician Assistant, Internal Medicine.

CPT 29520

Placement of strapping to hip

$34.88Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 14,495 services

Providers submitted

$71.63

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$34.88

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$27.33

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $71.63 for this code and Medicare allowed $34.88 — 2.1× 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 $27.33 (78%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 14,495
Beneficiaries: 2,551
Providers billing it: 74
Total allowed: $505,586

What Medicare pays for CPT 29520

Across 14,495 services billed by 74 providers to 2,551 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $34.88 per service. That is 5.7 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 29520

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Physical Therapist in Private Practice	9,387	1,472	$36.24	51
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation	2,278	412	$37.02	5
Physician Assistant	1,472	306	$27.81	10
Internal Medicine	562	103	$34.45	1
Nurse Practitioner	504	116	$27.39	3
Pain Management	195	100	$20.12	2
Family Practice	97	42	$30.98	2

29520 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	6,443	$37.86	$26.64	24
Maryland	1,785	$35.99	$26.98	1
Arizona	1,530	$27.79	$22.32	12
New York	1,043	$38.63	$27.18	5
Florida	776	$30.88	$23.70	3
Tennessee	693	$31.86	$26.24	7
Nevada	517	$27.91	$22.01	2
Indiana	362	$31.38	$25.41	5
Texas	331	$32.01	$26.90	1
Illinois	289	$35.29	$26.76	2
Kentucky	223	$14.91	$12.40	1
New Jersey	130	$42.48	$28.84	4
Pennsylvania	103	$35.57	$27.01	1
North Carolina	79	$39.29	$26.18	1
Alabama	68	$31.19	$26.84	1
Washington	67	$36.19	$25.20	3
Ohio	56	$31.60	$26.60	1

Related codes

29581Application of vein wound compression bandages on lower leg$84.27
29540Placement of strapping to ankle or foot$26.57
29580Strapping, unna boot$59.18
29550Placement of strapping to toes$15.55
29530Placement of strapping to knee$29.09
29515Application of short leg splint from calf to foot$62.72
29584Application of vein wound compression bandages on upper arm$71.17

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.