How much does Medicare pay for CPT 66710?

Medicare allowed an average of $650.39 per service and paid $512.75 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $2421.29, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 66710?

Destruction of lens tissue using laser. It was billed 5,175 times to 4,557 Medicare beneficiaries by 246 providers in 2024.

Does 66710 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $369.89 in an office setting and $656.03 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 66710 most?

Ambulatory Surgical Center, with 2,772 services from 121 clinicians. Next are Ophthalmology.

CPT 66710

Destruction of lens tissue using laser

$650.39Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 5,175 services

Providers submitted

$2421.29

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$650.39

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$512.75

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $2421.29 for this code and Medicare allowed $650.39 — 3.7× 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 $512.75 (79%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $369.89
Hospital / facility: $656.03

The facility rate is higher for this code, which is unusual and generally means the service depends on equipment or staffing a hospital carries. 102 services were billed in an office setting and 5,073 in a facility.

Services: 5,175
Beneficiaries: 4,557
Providers billing it: 246
Total allowed: $3,365,768

What Medicare pays for CPT 66710

Across 5,175 services billed by 246 providers to 4,557 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $650.39 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 66710

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Ambulatory Surgical Center	2,772	2,437	$898.05	121
Ophthalmology	2,403	2,120	$364.69	125

66710 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	592	$829.93	$546.04	29
Texas	403	$657.99	$539.12	13
Tennessee	312	$651.88	$565.05	13
Florida	301	$598.40	$486.01	17
Ohio	258	$612.42	$511.41	14
Oklahoma	243	$586.79	$496.52	8
Arizona	237	$614.54	$483.85	9
Virginia	216	$631.91	$533.07	9
New York	212	$728.74	$510.73	11
South Carolina	201	$567.66	$475.13	10
Michigan	191	$622.77	$508.57	6
Illinois	190	$617.66	$467.11	12
New Jersey	182	$511.95	$368.76	7
Georgia	149	$680.63	$553.75	9
Pennsylvania	143	$566.78	$458.34	9
Louisiana	142	$532.67	$460.66	4
Mississippi	136	$564.84	$522.65	4
Alabama	129	$508.95	$461.55	6
Kansas	98	$689.88	$575.65	4
Washington	90	$882.66	$633.74	4
Arkansas	90	$643.79	$550.61	4
Indiana	89	$604.17	$488.56	4
North Carolina	88	$547.77	$447.65	6
Maryland	87	$815.62	$645.07	6
Missouri	73	$476.31	$384.71	5
Connecticut	43	$690.25	$503.83	3
Montana	35	$639.61	$526.19	2
Massachusetts	35	$971.36	$734.23	2
Hawaii	33	$784.48	$551.73	2
North Dakota	27	$630.20	$523.91	2
Iowa	24	$608.86	$531.37	2
Utah	24	$652.31	$534.00	2
Delaware	23	$924.06	$705.81	2
Nebraska	17	$345.11	$294.84	1
Nevada	13	$860.79	$693.61	1
South Dakota	13	$769.40	$664.10	1
Wisconsin	13	$295.74	$238.02	1
Minnesota	12	$952.82	$719.44	1
Colorado	11	$804.98	$767.09	1

Related codes

66761Creation of eye fluid drainage tracts in iris$267.53
66762Creation of opening of iris for eye fluid drainage$529.79

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.