How much does Medicare pay for CPT 30520?

Medicare allowed an average of $665.18 per service and paid $527.29 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $4287.37, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 30520?

Reshaping of nasal cartilage. It was billed 10,898 times to 10,874 Medicare beneficiaries by 582 providers in 2024.

Does 30520 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $340.87 in an office setting and $702.95 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 30520 most?

Otolaryngology, with 5,828 services from 333 clinicians. Next are Ambulatory Surgical Center, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Ophthalmology.

CPT 30520

Reshaping of nasal cartilage

$665.18Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 10,898 services

Providers submitted

$4287.37

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$665.18

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$527.29

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $4287.37 for this code and Medicare allowed $665.18 — 6.4× 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 $527.29 (79%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $340.87
Hospital / facility: $702.95

The facility rate is higher for this code, which is unusual and generally means the service depends on equipment or staffing a hospital carries. 1,137 services were billed in an office setting and 9,761 in a facility.

Services: 10,898
Beneficiaries: 10,874
Providers billing it: 582
Total allowed: $7,249,132

What Medicare pays for CPT 30520

Across 10,898 services billed by 582 providers to 10,874 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $665.18 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 30520

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Otolaryngology	5,828	5,812	$476.93	333
Ambulatory Surgical Center	4,998	4,991	$888.25	245
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery	61	60	$387.25	3
Ophthalmology	11	11	$590.02	1

30520 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
Texas	1,366	$613.50	$505.35	66
Florida	1,060	$644.72	$527.70	58
California	1,036	$739.69	$504.59	54
Arizona	592	$732.52	$593.58	30
Kansas	561	$627.59	$539.67	23
Tennessee	426	$631.90	$559.17	23
Washington	407	$711.77	$539.34	22
Indiana	379	$621.16	$529.92	19
Alabama	373	$570.98	$514.61	19
Pennsylvania	339	$670.46	$544.26	22
South Carolina	289	$677.45	$583.49	14
North Carolina	276	$748.23	$624.17	16
Georgia	266	$753.07	$612.57	16
Virginia	261	$758.61	$615.29	15
Mississippi	248	$588.45	$565.91	9
Colorado	246	$835.30	$682.20	13
Illinois	240	$537.83	$431.75	13
Oklahoma	225	$416.81	$350.05	11
New York	182	$578.59	$395.96	11
Oregon	179	$707.99	$534.85	10
Utah	170	$724.56	$609.26	10
Ohio	156	$563.31	$472.68	10
Maryland	153	$646.10	$512.67	10
Iowa	136	$764.58	$666.04	7
Nevada	132	$522.49	$426.03	6
New Jersey	123	$667.94	$495.40	7
Montana	104	$683.67	$565.62	5
Michigan	103	$721.08	$588.42	8
Massachusetts	89	$777.67	$551.36	6
Idaho	87	$681.04	$592.27	5
Nebraska	84	$638.63	$535.11	5
Louisiana	82	$470.87	$388.77	4
Wyoming	70	$736.41	$602.57	4
Alaska	54	$884.86	$691.30	4
Connecticut	50	$776.93	$587.84	3
Kentucky	44	$651.32	$567.39	3
Wisconsin	43	$828.70	$703.30	3
Delaware	43	$790.03	$614.34	2
Minnesota	41	$889.11	$759.68	3
New Mexico	40	$677.90	$589.00	2
Missouri	39	$841.65	$702.25	3
Arkansas	30	$857.90	$750.38	2
South Dakota	24	$512.40	$374.91	2
New Hampshire	23	$565.37	$429.12	2
Rhode Island	14	$863.40	$750.46	1
Vermont	13	$542.41	$441.89	1

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.