How much does Medicare pay for CPT 29550?

Medicare allowed an average of $15.55 per service and paid $11.90 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $63.19, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 29550?

Placement of strapping to toes. It was billed 25,717 times to 14,457 Medicare beneficiaries by 428 providers in 2024.

Does 29550 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $15.61 in an office setting and $8.81 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 29550 most?

Podiatry, with 24,931 services from 407 clinicians. Next are Orthopedic Surgery, Physical Therapist in Private Practice, Nurse Practitioner.

CPT 29550

Placement of strapping to toes

$15.55Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 25,717 services

Providers submitted

$63.19

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$15.55

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$11.90

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $63.19 for this code and Medicare allowed $15.55 — 4.1× 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 $11.90 (77%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $15.61
Hospital / facility: $8.81

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. 25,489 services were billed in an office setting and 228 in a facility.

Services: 25,717
Beneficiaries: 14,457
Providers billing it: 428
Total allowed: $399,899

What Medicare pays for CPT 29550

Across 25,717 services billed by 428 providers to 14,457 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $15.55 per service. That is 1.8 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 29550

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Podiatry	24,931	14,074	$15.53	407
Orthopedic Surgery	381	213	$19.82	12
Physical Therapist in Private Practice	212	27	$11.91	1
Nurse Practitioner	104	67	$12.26	4
Physician Assistant	77	64	$14.23	3
Allergy/ Immunology	12	12	$19.45	1

29550 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	8,846	$15.55	$11.27	80
Illinois	4,443	$13.32	$10.58	33
Florida	3,475	$14.65	$10.98	73
New York	3,165	$20.35	$13.76	67
New Jersey	845	$17.12	$11.93	32
Maryland	638	$12.81	$9.68	10
Virginia	635	$17.45	$13.01	16
Arizona	533	$14.80	$11.31	15
Pennsylvania	402	$15.81	$11.19	11
Ohio	400	$13.78	$10.67	15
Texas	358	$15.66	$12.41	9
Indiana	288	$9.67	$7.80	4
Massachusetts	242	$18.41	$13.40	8
North Carolina	221	$14.73	$11.44	3
South Carolina	153	$13.63	$10.58	7
Washington	111	$16.16	$11.47	5
Tennessee	100	$18.45	$14.28	4
Minnesota	99	$12.52	$9.12	3
Wisconsin	93	$12.75	$10.44	4
Colorado	89	$12.10	$9.87	2
Nevada	81	$13.85	$11.19	3
Louisiana	68	$14.44	$10.10	3
Missouri	57	$12.85	$10.98	2
Connecticut	44	$19.54	$13.84	2
Michigan	39	$14.72	$10.66	2
Georgia	38	$19.08	$14.82	2
Iowa	34	$14.60	$11.26	1
New Mexico	33	$16.10	$12.32	2
Maine	33	$11.15	$8.70	1
Delaware	30	$17.93	$12.55	2
Idaho	21	$18.27	$14.44	1
Kentucky	19	$17.36	$12.93	1
Kansas	19	$16.51	$12.98	1
District of Columbia	18	$17.80	$9.96	1
Alabama	18	$17.37	$14.41	1
Oregon	15	$17.94	$14.59	1
Arkansas	14	$16.18	$13.58	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
29520Placement of strapping to hip$34.88
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.