How much does Medicare pay for CPT 29824?

Medicare allowed an average of $399.85 per service and paid $318.31 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $4819.84, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 29824?

Partial removal of collar bone at shoulder using an endoscope. It was billed 28,236 times to 28,040 Medicare beneficiaries by 1,262 providers in 2024.

Does 29824 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $211.21 in an office setting and $401.61 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 29824 most?

Orthopedic Surgery, with 12,019 services from 580 clinicians. Next are Ambulatory Surgical Center, Physician Assistant, Sports Medicine.

CPT 29824

Partial removal of collar bone at shoulder using an endoscope

$399.85Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 28,236 services

Providers submitted

$4819.84

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$399.85

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$318.31

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $4819.84 for this code and Medicare allowed $399.85 — 12.1× 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 $318.31 (80%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $211.21
Hospital / facility: $401.61

The facility rate is higher for this code, which is unusual and generally means the service depends on equipment or staffing a hospital carries. 261 services were billed in an office setting and 27,975 in a facility.

Services: 28,236
Beneficiaries: 28,040
Providers billing it: 1,262
Total allowed: $11,290,165

What Medicare pays for CPT 29824

Across 28,236 services billed by 1,262 providers to 28,040 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $399.85 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 29824

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Orthopedic Surgery	12,019	11,933	$274.39	580
Ambulatory Surgical Center	8,929	8,871	$826.79	328
Physician Assistant	5,175	5,144	$38.05	256
Sports Medicine	1,031	1,021	$289.50	48
Nurse Practitioner	686	680	$37.05	33
Hand Surgery	310	308	$264.25	15
Certified Clinical Nurse Specialist	65	63	$40.94	1
Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine	21	20	$217.56	1

29824 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	2,887	$442.02	$338.62	108
Texas	2,049	$327.88	$228.39	103
California	1,549	$600.90	$378.96	79
North Carolina	1,357	$398.02	$310.24	56
Mississippi	1,351	$377.42	$308.38	39
Alabama	1,222	$351.49	$296.73	49
Ohio	1,108	$397.97	$308.15	50
South Carolina	1,093	$338.81	$245.17	51
Georgia	1,007	$410.95	$303.51	50
Illinois	945	$395.74	$279.40	42
Arizona	892	$448.99	$340.26	26
Oklahoma	884	$301.23	$222.16	39
Tennessee	809	$454.05	$364.47	41
Virginia	783	$395.51	$286.80	32
Utah	703	$388.36	$293.95	29
Michigan	687	$354.09	$266.38	27
Nevada	677	$416.57	$294.36	22
Washington	672	$456.71	$335.05	24
Maryland	563	$433.66	$313.61	22
Louisiana	562	$298.87	$231.96	27
Massachusetts	544	$382.64	$267.95	23
Arkansas	543	$337.77	$265.39	30
New York	479	$540.57	$371.17	32
Pennsylvania	457	$418.87	$312.11	28
Missouri	388	$420.58	$330.91	16
Colorado	379	$420.67	$339.79	19
Indiana	376	$345.84	$264.70	20
New Jersey	356	$404.67	$269.07	23
Nebraska	324	$294.86	$217.43	14
Minnesota	281	$514.49	$385.78	19
North Dakota	278	$404.42	$314.84	11
Iowa	269	$377.32	$297.35	16
South Dakota	266	$150.27	$80.18	13
Idaho	256	$343.31	$258.48	16
Kansas	239	$202.01	$129.04	11
Montana	192	$377.61	$297.89	10
Kentucky	119	$175.33	$94.84	5
Delaware	114	$481.02	$346.40	5
Alaska	106	$510.36	$356.31	6
Wisconsin	98	$364.66	$275.27	8
Connecticut	95	$564.68	$428.44	6
Hawaii	77	$314.30	$177.00	2
Wyoming	69	$311.06	$213.70	4
New Mexico	33	$600.45	$533.87	2
New Hampshire	25	$569.52	$432.36	2
Maine	25	$135.97	$64.07	2
Rhode Island	20	$897.23	$714.44	1
Oregon	15	$31.08	$11.94	1
West Virginia	13	$753.31	$686.96	1

Related codes

29827Repair of shoulder rotator cuff$1315.10
29848Release of wrist ligament$567.21
29826Shaving of part of shoulder bone and repair of ligament$117.20
29823Removal of extensive shoulder joint tissue$290.14
29828Release of tendon connecting biceps muscle and shoulder$1244.67
29881Removal of knee cartilage$1040.58
29880Removal of both knee cartilages$1020.13
29879Repair of knee joint$618.02
29876Removal of joint lining from multiple knee joint compartments$605.32
29822Limited removal of abnormal shoulder joint tissue$411.36

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.