How much does Medicare pay for CPT 61510?

Medicare allowed an average of $2135.37 per service and paid $1704.98 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $12,183, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 61510?

Removal of skull bone for removal of growth of upper brain. It was billed 1,736 times to 1,669 Medicare beneficiaries by 98 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills 61510 most?

Neurosurgery, with 1,644 services from 91 clinicians. Next are Physician Assistant, Nurse Practitioner.

CPT 61510

Removal of skull bone for removal of growth of upper brain

$2135.37Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 1,736 services

Providers submitted

$12,183

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$2135.37

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$1704.98

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $12,183 for this code and Medicare allowed $2135.37 — 5.7× 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 $1704.98 (80%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 1,736
Beneficiaries: 1,669
Providers billing it: 98
Total allowed: $3,707,002

What Medicare pays for CPT 61510

Across 1,736 services billed by 98 providers to 1,669 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $2135.37 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 61510

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Neurosurgery	1,644	1,579	$2239.13	91
Physician Assistant	56	54	$302.93	4
Nurse Practitioner	36	36	$247.25	3

61510 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	263	$1972.72	$1489.01	17
Texas	179	$2229.89	$1633.66	9
Illinois	139	$1970.87	$1344.15	8
Massachusetts	138	$2340.68	$1745.56	6
Pennsylvania	129	$2335.10	$1731.26	6
New York	120	$2566.20	$1671.77	8
Florida	88	$2531.54	$1737.08	4
North Carolina	73	$1940.83	$1721.50	4
Ohio	65	$2103.85	$1703.28	3
Arizona	57	$1997.56	$1677.60	2
New Jersey	47	$2371.83	$1722.35	3
Wisconsin	46	$1954.17	$1629.96	3
Arkansas	41	$1205.38	$1091.12	2
Oklahoma	30	$2018.44	$1689.20	2
Maryland	29	$2305.34	$1663.91	1
Kentucky	29	$2096.40	$1732.85	1
Michigan	26	$2612.03	$1740.86	2
Nevada	26	$1161.09	$852.72	2
Colorado	25	$2198.89	$1749.11	2
Utah	25	$2159.36	$1741.68	2
Virginia	24	$2315.10	$1744.49	2
Louisiana	22	$1997.44	$1586.98	1
South Carolina	21	$2037.35	$1738.08	1
Minnesota	17	$2011.03	$1744.67	1
Missouri	16	$2227.50	$1666.64	1
Georgia	16	$2329.30	$1747.83	1
Kansas	12	$1827.60	$1597.11	1
Washington	11	$2342.32	$1746.19	1
Indiana	11	$260.67	$129.57	1
North Dakota	11	$1983.30	$1732.20	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.