How much does Medicare pay for CPT 29880?

Medicare allowed an average of $1020.13 per service and paid $808.84 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $6924.07, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 29880?

Removal of both knee cartilages using an endoscope. It was billed 15,981 times to 15,742 Medicare beneficiaries by 812 providers in 2024.

Does 29880 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $392.80 in an office setting and $1022.26 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 29880 most?

Ambulatory Surgical Center, with 8,778 services from 400 clinicians. Next are Orthopedic Surgery, Sports Medicine, Physician Assistant.

CPT 29880

Removal of both knee cartilages using an endoscope

$1020.13Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 15,981 services

Providers submitted

$6924.07

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$1020.13

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$808.84

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $6924.07 for this code and Medicare allowed $1020.13 — 6.8× 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 $808.84 (79%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $392.80
Hospital / facility: $1022.26

The facility rate is higher for this code, which is unusual and generally means the service depends on equipment or staffing a hospital carries. 54 services were billed in an office setting and 15,927 in a facility.

Services: 15,981
Beneficiaries: 15,742
Providers billing it: 812
Total allowed: $16,302,698

What Medicare pays for CPT 29880

Across 15,981 services billed by 812 providers to 15,742 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $1020.13 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 29880

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Ambulatory Surgical Center	8,778	8,639	$1477.24	400
Orthopedic Surgery	6,121	6,035	$485.35	352
Sports Medicine	575	569	$533.19	35
Physician Assistant	317	316	$76.19	18
Nurse Practitioner	138	132	$32.55	3
Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine	38	37	$568.04	3
Emergency Medicine	14	14	$562.45	1

29880 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	2,322	$1231.81	$827.95	113
Florida	1,566	$1010.79	$837.87	76
Texas	814	$740.29	$598.74	46
Nevada	785	$753.62	$576.59	21
New York	669	$1233.81	$865.96	34
Arizona	559	$981.47	$796.34	28
Maryland	516	$1084.07	$860.65	23
Pennsylvania	466	$998.18	$795.79	25
Ohio	445	$1074.81	$917.96	26
Illinois	426	$1136.32	$905.57	21
South Carolina	420	$920.39	$782.43	23
New Jersey	397	$1116.40	$818.10	24
Tennessee	393	$1113.06	$1007.41	19
Virginia	374	$1006.79	$839.39	20
Georgia	368	$991.42	$848.49	21
Michigan	341	$1015.67	$850.61	19
Oklahoma	336	$569.26	$477.13	16
Arkansas	320	$830.43	$715.60	14
Mississippi	307	$945.25	$874.11	14
Alabama	306	$892.36	$838.11	16
Washington	305	$1183.62	$908.97	15
North Carolina	284	$1166.43	$983.37	17
Massachusetts	267	$1138.74	$873.73	13
Colorado	239	$1136.97	$903.11	14
Connecticut	237	$1418.13	$1058.79	13
Indiana	230	$955.78	$800.24	14
Kansas	222	$733.65	$642.28	13
Wisconsin	166	$1002.80	$836.21	9
Louisiana	154	$919.92	$838.36	9
Nebraska	152	$896.60	$761.65	6
Utah	143	$1015.78	$876.32	7
Wyoming	143	$931.67	$749.68	9
New Hampshire	125	$1086.40	$857.66	8
Montana	125	$997.04	$837.07	7
Kentucky	112	$658.06	$558.68	7
Iowa	111	$848.42	$713.52	6
Missouri	107	$1157.86	$1022.69	7
Delaware	103	$1226.58	$958.44	5
Oregon	100	$1126.07	$860.60	6
Idaho	78	$1034.01	$895.69	4
North Dakota	77	$954.03	$806.04	5
West Virginia	75	$571.75	$486.91	4
New Mexico	72	$1043.61	$924.02	4
Alaska	65	$716.88	$509.62	3
Rhode Island	48	$858.74	$675.87	3
Hawaii	46	$166.11	$90.71	1
South Dakota	36	$516.01	$440.19	2
Minnesota	29	$1455.78	$1169.26	2

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
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.