How much does Medicare pay for CPT 33517?

Medicare allowed an average of $147.00 per service and paid $117.43 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $662.14, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 33517?

Coronary artery bypass using vein or artery graft, 1 graft. It was billed 4,101 times to 4,098 Medicare beneficiaries by 275 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills 33517 most?

Thoracic Surgery, with 1,754 services from 116 clinicians. Next are Cardiac Surgery, Physician Assistant, General Surgery.

CPT 33517

Coronary artery bypass using vein or artery graft, 1 graft

$147.00Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 4,101 services

Providers submitted

$662.14

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$147.00

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$117.43

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $662.14 for this code and Medicare allowed $147.00 — 4.5× 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 $117.43 (80%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 4,101
Beneficiaries: 4,098
Providers billing it: 275
Total allowed: $602,847

What Medicare pays for CPT 33517

Across 4,101 services billed by 275 providers to 4,098 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $147.00 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 33517

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Thoracic Surgery	1,754	1,754	$176.59	116
Cardiac Surgery	1,576	1,575	$165.14	104
Physician Assistant	586	584	$24.88	44
General Surgery	99	99	$107.00	4
Nurse Practitioner	49	49	$20.46	4
Cardiology	37	37	$180.60	3

33517 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	444	$124.33	$99.85	26
Florida	417	$154.69	$114.96	29
New York	236	$185.58	$124.82	17
Texas	213	$148.88	$119.10	16
Pennsylvania	210	$167.03	$127.62	14
Virginia	190	$137.27	$108.63	12
Illinois	182	$165.32	$121.46	12
Massachusetts	159	$165.23	$129.42	11
Ohio	155	$165.09	$133.57	10
North Carolina	148	$122.77	$102.52	11
Indiana	144	$122.35	$102.87	10
New Jersey	127	$152.59	$117.56	9
Maryland	125	$141.99	$106.29	7
Missouri	124	$149.43	$118.25	8
Michigan	102	$145.26	$109.02	7
Oklahoma	96	$166.76	$142.39	5
Kentucky	85	$132.80	$110.85	7
Louisiana	76	$107.06	$87.45	5
Alabama	74	$140.38	$122.95	4
Tennessee	66	$159.75	$142.40	5
South Carolina	64	$148.44	$121.30	5
Wisconsin	63	$162.16	$142.68	4
Mississippi	61	$142.12	$118.98	5
Arizona	59	$133.82	$111.88	4
District of Columbia	58	$199.33	$142.70	3
South Dakota	53	$79.49	$70.24	2
Iowa	52	$121.47	$107.26	4
Washington	40	$175.44	$142.54	3
Oregon	38	$129.40	$103.87	3
Connecticut	33	$195.62	$142.73	2
Montana	32	$121.86	$96.60	2
Arkansas	28	$105.51	$93.62	2
Georgia	25	$109.65	$83.57	2
North Dakota	24	$94.02	$80.79	2
Nebraska	23	$182.76	$137.37	2
Kansas	21	$162.67	$142.46	1
Minnesota	20	$26.22	$19.40	1
Colorado	12	$177.47	$142.23	1
Utah	11	$94.94	$77.46	1
Wyoming	11	$180.43	$142.38	1

Related codes

33533Coronary artery bypass$1166.73
33508Harvest of vein$11.28
33518Coronary artery bypass$295.62
33519Coronary artery bypass$408.71
33534Coronary artery bypass$1775.80

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.