How much does Medicare pay for CPT 61885?

Medicare allowed an average of $1053.49 per service and paid $834.38 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $4528.75, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 61885?

Insertion of brain neurostimulator pulse device with connection to single electrode array. It was billed 1,405 times to 1,361 Medicare beneficiaries by 76 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills 61885 most?

Neurosurgery, with 1,273 services from 69 clinicians. Next are Ambulatory Surgical Center, Vascular Surgery, Physician Assistant.

CPT 61885

Insertion of brain neurostimulator pulse device with connection to single electrode array

$1053.49Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 1,405 services

Providers submitted

$4528.75

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$1053.49

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$834.38

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $4528.75 for this code and Medicare allowed $1053.49 — 4.3× 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 $834.38 (79%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 1,405
Beneficiaries: 1,361
Providers billing it: 76
Total allowed: $1,480,153

What Medicare pays for CPT 61885

Across 1,405 services billed by 76 providers to 1,361 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $1053.49 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 61885

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Neurosurgery	1,273	1,244	$542.21	69
Ambulatory Surgical Center	41	26	$18,582	1
Vascular Surgery	26	26	$458.42	1
Physician Assistant	26	26	$81.92	2
Otolaryngology	14	14	$508.80	1
Nurse Practitioner	14	14	$88.38	1
Thoracic Surgery	11	11	$513.37	1

61885 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
Florida	156	$526.23	$394.14	8
Colorado	132	$6199.81	$5075.96	5
Alabama	121	$472.91	$436.96	4
New York	88	$661.38	$470.45	6
California	84	$551.28	$392.24	5
Ohio	67	$511.18	$409.86	5
Illinois	65	$591.74	$390.03	3
Missouri	65	$567.02	$454.87	3
South Carolina	59	$405.29	$343.11	2
Kansas	55	$512.69	$446.00	3
Minnesota	46	$472.25	$416.06	2
Virginia	46	$495.66	$412.69	2
Indiana	46	$460.55	$411.37	2
Georgia	44	$489.52	$389.60	2
Texas	37	$498.38	$406.07	3
Pennsylvania	30	$582.80	$456.05	2
Oklahoma	29	$565.06	$505.52	2
Montana	28	$437.02	$343.10	2
Massachusetts	26	$608.41	$431.36	2
Mississippi	25	$459.24	$401.22	1
South Dakota	24	$245.45	$229.92	2
North Carolina	23	$494.90	$411.58	2
Wisconsin	22	$560.02	$500.72	2
New Hampshire	21	$526.13	$389.60	1
Tennessee	14	$484.69	$437.39	1
Washington	14	$645.83	$554.89	1
Michigan	13	$563.46	$428.11	1
Kentucky	13	$503.52	$396.42	1
Maine	12	$570.12	$474.28	1

Related codes

61886Insertion of brain neurostimulator pulse device$1268.93
61800Computer-assisted radiosurgery application of headframe$151.51
61867Removal of skull bone$2149.59

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.