How much does Medicare pay for CPT 29876?

Medicare allowed an average of $605.32 per service and paid $480.99 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $4419.29, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 29876?

Removal of joint lining from multiple knee joint compartments using an endoscope. It was billed 2,151 times to 2,100 Medicare beneficiaries by 104 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills 29876 most?

Orthopedic Surgery, with 1,487 services from 72 clinicians. Next are Ambulatory Surgical Center, Sports Medicine.

CPT 29876

Removal of joint lining from multiple knee joint compartments using an endoscope

$605.32Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 2,151 services

Providers submitted

$4419.29

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$605.32

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$480.99

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $4419.29 for this code and Medicare allowed $605.32 — 7.3× 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 $480.99 (79%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 2,151
Beneficiaries: 2,100
Providers billing it: 104
Total allowed: $1,302,043

What Medicare pays for CPT 29876

Across 2,151 services billed by 104 providers to 2,100 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $605.32 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 29876

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Orthopedic Surgery	1,487	1,447	$522.03	72
Ambulatory Surgical Center	596	586	$823.29	27
Sports Medicine	68	67	$516.14	5

29876 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	540	$667.88	$468.84	20
Florida	311	$544.19	$418.85	13
Nevada	271	$539.00	$376.27	7
Texas	159	$548.09	$414.87	10
Massachusetts	92	$718.07	$542.41	4
Illinois	81	$735.02	$578.10	5
Colorado	49	$665.43	$510.28	3
Indiana	49	$537.47	$429.57	4
Ohio	47	$730.91	$602.63	3
North Carolina	46	$629.76	$517.41	4
Alaska	46	$628.49	$512.85	1
New Hampshire	37	$731.88	$578.78	2
Oklahoma	37	$690.24	$582.97	2
Michigan	36	$550.21	$387.35	3
Rhode Island	33	$765.91	$672.55	2
Alabama	33	$228.36	$108.10	1
Maryland	31	$498.24	$336.40	2
Washington	28	$789.62	$632.17	2
New Mexico	26	$639.71	$612.54	1
New Jersey	24	$548.54	$359.64	2
Puerto Rico	23	$381.45	$352.30	2
Kentucky	20	$225.91	$95.23	1
Arizona	19	$447.51	$311.84	1
South Carolina	15	$519.69	$413.21	1
Missouri	15	$635.18	$492.38	1
Georgia	14	$662.56	$462.52	1
Arkansas	12	$594.96	$517.33	1
Virginia	12	$544.35	$491.49	1
Mississippi	12	$535.18	$438.58	1
Pennsylvania	11	$574.82	$485.98	1
New York	11	$705.88	$446.62	1
Wyoming	11	$636.06	$518.02	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
29824Partial removal of collar bone at shoulder$399.85
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
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.