How much does Medicare pay for CPT 36500?

Medicare allowed an average of $91.52 per service and paid $73.24 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $693.93, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 36500?

Insertion of tube into vein with collection of blood sample. It was billed 1,860 times to 1,708 Medicare beneficiaries by 60 providers in 2024.

Does 36500 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $81.00 in an office setting and $92.20 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 36500 most?

General Surgery, with 1,296 services from 43 clinicians. Next are Surgical Oncology, Otolaryngology, Critical Care (Intensivists).

CPT 36500

Insertion of tube into vein with collection of blood sample

$91.52Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 1,860 services

Providers submitted

$693.93

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$91.52

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$73.24

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $693.93 for this code and Medicare allowed $91.52 — 7.6× 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 $73.24 (80%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $81.00
Hospital / facility: $92.20

The facility rate is higher for this code, which is unusual and generally means the service depends on equipment or staffing a hospital carries. 114 services were billed in an office setting and 1,746 in a facility.

Services: 1,860
Beneficiaries: 1,708
Providers billing it: 60
Total allowed: $170,227

What Medicare pays for CPT 36500

Across 1,860 services billed by 60 providers to 1,708 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $91.52 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 36500

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
General Surgery	1,296	1,217	$89.97	43
Surgical Oncology	214	196	$82.86	8
Otolaryngology	143	143	$90.13	4
Critical Care (Intensivists)	86	86	$91.18	1
Interventional Radiology	64	29	$135.53	2
Diagnostic Radiology	40	20	$126.21	1
Endocrinology	17	17	$84.65	1

36500 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	318	$90.65	$69.81	10
New York	164	$107.18	$69.35	5
Illinois	129	$96.43	$69.56	5
Colorado	123	$88.00	$69.40	2
Michigan	122	$90.63	$69.92	5
Tennessee	121	$82.67	$69.69	5
North Carolina	109	$82.03	$69.44	3
Pennsylvania	102	$99.69	$79.15	4
Georgia	83	$85.97	$69.50	1
Arizona	81	$86.91	$69.26	3
Nebraska	74	$77.95	$69.43	2
South Carolina	64	$82.36	$69.56	1
Kentucky	58	$80.97	$70.23	1
Massachusetts	56	$87.81	$69.39	2
Texas	48	$90.20	$69.24	2
Minnesota	40	$126.21	$100.85	1
Oklahoma	38	$83.09	$70.32	1
Alabama	30	$79.21	$69.94	1
Maryland	30	$139.35	$103.87	1
New Jersey	28	$93.68	$69.39	2
Ohio	27	$87.51	$69.37	2
Connecticut	15	$98.62	$74.11	1

Related codes

36556Insertion of non-tunneled central venous tube for infusion (5 years or$81.86
36561Insertion of central venous tube$398.30
36558Insertion of tunneled central venous tube for infusion (5 years or old$285.71
36591Collection of blood sample from implanted device$27.38
36589Removal of tunneled central venous tube$161.38
36573Insertion of tube for infusion$94.78
36581Replacement of tunneled central venous tube$744.12
36590Removal of central venous tube$196.77
36514Mechanical separation of plasma from blood$92.43
36593Declotting of central venous tube$38.30
36569Insertion of tube for infusion (5 years or older)$91.24
36522Mechanical separation of white blood cells and platelets from blood$90.95

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.