How much does Medicare pay for CPT 29879?

Medicare allowed an average of $618.02 per service and paid $490.75 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $4602.10, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 29879?

Repair of knee joint with drilling and or scraping of joint using an endoscope. It was billed 2,429 times to 2,362 Medicare beneficiaries by 107 providers in 2024.

Does 29879 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $604.80 in an office setting and $618.20 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 29879 most?

Orthopedic Surgery, with 1,469 services from 71 clinicians. Next are Ambulatory Surgical Center, Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant.

CPT 29879

Repair of knee joint with drilling and or scraping of joint using an endoscope

$618.02Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 2,429 services

Providers submitted

$4602.10

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$618.02

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$490.75

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $4602.10 for this code and Medicare allowed $618.02 — 7.4× 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 $490.75 (79%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $604.80
Hospital / facility: $618.20

The facility rate is higher for this code, which is unusual and generally means the service depends on equipment or staffing a hospital carries. 32 services were billed in an office setting and 2,397 in a facility.

Services: 2,429
Beneficiaries: 2,362
Providers billing it: 107
Total allowed: $1,501,171

What Medicare pays for CPT 29879

Across 2,429 services billed by 107 providers to 2,362 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $618.02 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 29879

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Orthopedic Surgery	1,469	1,442	$644.55	71
Ambulatory Surgical Center	724	692	$728.57	29
Nurse Practitioner	129	123	$90.57	3
Physician Assistant	95	93	$93.56	3
Sports Medicine	12	12	$523.28	1

29879 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	527	$608.70	$476.31	17
Nevada	418	$543.14	$417.10	7
Texas	323	$659.31	$524.76	18
California	143	$723.96	$519.73	9
Oklahoma	105	$632.20	$507.72	3
Montana	96	$521.89	$421.49	6
Maryland	91	$691.08	$575.77	4
Arkansas	86	$634.29	$562.84	4
Ohio	77	$627.70	$552.95	5
Alabama	61	$588.96	$524.15	2
South Carolina	53	$610.77	$484.15	3
Hawaii	44	$682.73	$526.50	1
Tennessee	38	$624.42	$548.22	3
New York	38	$774.43	$527.27	2
Indiana	37	$436.89	$362.04	3
Nebraska	35	$592.60	$541.10	2
Michigan	32	$684.77	$520.18	2
Kentucky	32	$621.72	$518.86	2
Virginia	31	$687.32	$565.52	2
Massachusetts	30	$735.05	$555.59	2
Pennsylvania	26	$606.39	$528.40	2
Georgia	25	$610.86	$458.49	2
Puerto Rico	23	$569.09	$560.27	2
New Mexico	18	$630.24	$611.90	1
Washington	14	$580.04	$505.10	1
Colorado	14	$605.37	$462.36	1
New Jersey	12	$750.13	$523.65	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
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.