How much does Medicare pay for CPT 66761?

Medicare allowed an average of $267.53 per service and paid $205.01 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $1217.01, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 66761?

Creation of eye fluid drainage tracts in iris using a laser, per session. It was billed 19,427 times to 11,832 Medicare beneficiaries by 583 providers in 2024.

Does 66761 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $316.27 in an office setting and $201.96 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 66761 most?

Ophthalmology, with 14,061 services from 445 clinicians. Next are Ambulatory Surgical Center.

CPT 66761

Creation of eye fluid drainage tracts in iris using a laser, per session

$267.53Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 19,427 services

Providers submitted

$1217.01

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$267.53

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$205.01

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $1217.01 for this code and Medicare allowed $267.53 — 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 $205.01 (77%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $316.27
Hospital / facility: $201.96

The office rate is higher because the practice supplies the room, staff and equipment out of that payment. In a hospital the facility bills those separately, so the clinician's share is smaller — the total cost to Medicare is usually higher, not lower. 11,143 services were billed in an office setting and 8,284 in a facility.

Services: 19,427
Beneficiaries: 11,832
Providers billing it: 583
Total allowed: $5,197,305

What Medicare pays for CPT 66761

Across 19,427 services billed by 583 providers to 11,832 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $267.53 per service. That is 1.6 services per beneficiary, so this is a code patients typically receive more than once. 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 66761

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Ophthalmology	14,061	8,685	$301.08	445
Ambulatory Surgical Center	5,366	3,147	$179.61	138

66761 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	2,720	$316.32	$210.00	88
New York	2,715	$308.52	$207.55	68
Pennsylvania	1,882	$252.39	$195.01	56
Florida	1,712	$250.17	$194.73	49
Massachusetts	1,357	$233.61	$166.32	36
New Jersey	1,270	$282.40	$191.72	33
Arizona	1,140	$221.81	$171.25	30
Ohio	817	$214.89	$173.41	23
Illinois	813	$272.16	$201.06	28
Texas	646	$250.76	$194.09	21
Maryland	640	$282.07	$201.88	21
North Carolina	459	$278.74	$225.02	14
Kansas	371	$207.75	$178.90	9
Virginia	328	$257.27	$197.26	11
Hawaii	252	$283.57	$203.26	9
Georgia	249	$255.33	$193.45	9
New Hampshire	209	$252.74	$187.49	4
Connecticut	207	$314.12	$218.50	8
Delaware	202	$234.46	$175.08	6
Michigan	170	$236.68	$187.03	8
Maine	168	$220.68	$185.84	8
Wisconsin	128	$218.54	$167.16	5
Missouri	111	$207.09	$171.92	4
Nebraska	102	$176.81	$157.22	2
Tennessee	97	$222.34	$189.00	4
South Carolina	96	$225.23	$181.52	4
Indiana	91	$218.94	$179.57	4
Nevada	78	$309.93	$240.10	4
West Virginia	64	$236.62	$194.08	2
Alabama	52	$243.65	$238.29	1
Washington	40	$293.99	$208.03	2
Rhode Island	37	$317.80	$225.08	1
Kentucky	37	$264.12	$227.05	1
Oregon	36	$211.52	$158.93	2
Idaho	21	$170.81	$149.08	1
Montana	20	$313.70	$247.70	1
Alaska	19	$388.92	$248.85	1
Vermont	18	$225.44	$171.41	1
U.S. Virgin Islands	17	$272.50	$217.88	1
Oklahoma	13	$270.11	$229.26	1
New Mexico	12	$368.77	$272.51	1
Arkansas	11	$205.84	$195.71	1

Related codes

66710Destruction of lens tissue$650.39
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.