How much does Medicare pay for CPT 70210?

Medicare allowed an average of $23.09 per service and paid $16.25 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $65.16, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 70210?

X-ray of paranasal sinus, 1-2 views. It was billed 7,386 times to 6,114 Medicare beneficiaries by 217 providers in 2024.

Does 70210 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $24.19 in an office setting and $7.94 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 70210 most?

Family Practice, with 1,932 services from 63 clinicians. Next are Nurse Practitioner, Internal Medicine, Diagnostic Radiology.

CPT 70210

X-ray of paranasal sinus, 1-2 views

$23.09Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 7,386 services

Providers submitted

$65.16

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$23.09

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$16.25

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $65.16 for this code and Medicare allowed $23.09 — 2.8× 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 $16.25 (70%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $24.19
Hospital / facility: $7.94

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. 6,884 services were billed in an office setting and 502 in a facility.

Services: 7,386
Beneficiaries: 6,114
Providers billing it: 217
Total allowed: $170,543

What Medicare pays for CPT 70210

Across 7,386 services billed by 217 providers to 6,114 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $23.09 per service. That is 1.2 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 70210

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Family Practice	1,932	1,619	$26.62	63
Nurse Practitioner	1,471	1,200	$22.79	29
Internal Medicine	1,235	946	$23.13	31
Diagnostic Radiology	1,016	992	$12.89	55
Otolaryngology	942	767	$27.87	15
Portable X-Ray Supplier	339	180	$15.85	6
Physician Assistant	131	118	$24.69	4
Emergency Medicine	131	122	$31.02	4
Allergy/ Immunology	80	73	$25.79	4
Pulmonary Disease	55	46	$30.24	3
General Practice	40	37	$28.67	2
Interventional Radiology	14	14	$7.74	1

70210 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
Alabama	1,561	$24.43	$20.16	46
Tennessee	1,315	$21.03	$16.97	33
Georgia	692	$26.02	$21.01	10
South Carolina	522	$17.57	$13.08	6
Louisiana	515	$21.45	$16.47	17
Arkansas	363	$21.55	$18.74	16
Oklahoma	319	$11.68	$8.55	15
Texas	313	$24.84	$19.42	7
Nebraska	248	$27.95	$21.96	5
California	209	$36.34	$22.09	6
Mississippi	169	$22.94	$19.80	8
Rhode Island	165	$30.89	$21.98	6
Florida	107	$28.96	$23.16	5
Kansas	100	$17.56	$14.79	4
Idaho	91	$25.59	$20.77	3
Maryland	84	$16.23	$12.40	1
Ohio	80	$16.37	$11.53	4
New York	78	$35.83	$23.58	3
New Jersey	76	$36.42	$23.88	3
Virginia	70	$18.33	$14.02	3
Kentucky	63	$23.52	$16.84	3
West Virginia	60	$13.31	$10.23	3
South Dakota	45	$24.27	$17.48	3
North Carolina	40	$21.49	$13.34	2
Pennsylvania	39	$25.44	$24.27	1
Illinois	23	$24.39	$18.01	1
Arizona	14	$30.17	$25.70	1
Washington	13	$32.63	$23.30	1
Missouri	12	$30.40	$19.27	1

Related codes

70250X-ray of skull$17.28
70220X-ray of paranasal sinus$27.63
70260X-ray of skull$26.97

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.