How much does Medicare pay for CPT 71250?

Medicare allowed an average of $66.48 per service and paid $49.32 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $418.00, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 71250?

Ct scan of chest without contrast. It was billed 2,464,435 times to 2,352,107 Medicare beneficiaries by 21,933 providers in 2024.

Does 71250 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $98.63 in an office setting and $49.81 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 71250 most?

Diagnostic Radiology, with 2,249,850 services from 19,290 clinicians. Next are Interventional Radiology, Independent Diagnostic Testing Facility (IDTF), Pulmonary Disease.

CPT 71250

Ct scan of chest without contrast

$66.48Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 2,464,435 services

Providers submitted

$418.00

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$66.48

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$49.32

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $418.00 for this code and Medicare allowed $66.48 — 6.3× 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 $49.32 (74%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $98.63
Hospital / facility: $49.81

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. 841,712 services were billed in an office setting and 1,622,723 in a facility.

Services: 2,464,435
Beneficiaries: 2,352,107
Providers billing it: 21,933
Total allowed: $163,835,639

What Medicare pays for CPT 71250

Across 2,464,435 services billed by 21,933 providers to 2,352,107 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $66.48 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 71250

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Diagnostic Radiology	2,249,850	2,157,913	$64.67	19,290
Interventional Radiology	76,877	74,480	$65.30	802
Independent Diagnostic Testing Facility (IDTF)	70,248	61,286	$113.32	494
Pulmonary Disease	14,857	12,552	$81.44	187
Hematology-Oncology	9,579	8,029	$77.99	290
Internal Medicine	7,740	6,886	$85.00	171
Nuclear Medicine	7,334	6,609	$78.94	66
Radiation Oncology	4,761	4,171	$74.06	89
Family Practice	4,691	4,163	$83.87	132
Medical Oncology	3,091	2,570	$67.43	106
Cardiology	2,857	2,588	$105.34	64
Emergency Medicine	2,038	1,903	$89.11	33
Endocrinology	1,054	394	$59.00	3
Nurse Practitioner	1,052	949	$79.09	28
Physician Assistant	1,026	924	$67.18	26

71250 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	219,006	$81.81	$53.65	1,989
Florida	206,333	$77.82	$56.46	1,475
New York	189,628	$81.55	$52.78	1,256
Texas	168,349	$63.16	$46.34	1,706
Pennsylvania	117,694	$57.18	$40.41	965
Illinois	111,105	$58.95	$41.31	956
New Jersey	86,179	$81.18	$53.77	631
North Carolina	82,197	$61.56	$45.86	767
Massachusetts	80,460	$59.42	$40.11	587
Ohio	77,277	$54.25	$39.11	767
Maryland	74,351	$83.97	$57.18	417
Virginia	73,921	$63.76	$46.17	562
Minnesota	70,915	$64.28	$45.85	790
Georgia	65,064	$56.10	$41.52	661
Missouri	61,148	$54.29	$40.17	503
Tennessee	60,955	$60.27	$45.86	586
Michigan	55,397	$53.94	$38.75	616
Arizona	50,900	$77.91	$56.71	410
Colorado	43,899	$65.21	$45.28	423
Indiana	43,846	$52.73	$39.15	419
South Carolina	41,516	$58.23	$43.97	384
Washington	37,225	$65.81	$45.20	416
Wisconsin	36,997	$56.24	$40.99	467
Connecticut	31,907	$67.42	$46.32	288
Kentucky	30,552	$52.52	$39.10	260
Alabama	30,472	$58.48	$44.56	337
Oklahoma	24,929	$51.07	$38.31	228
Louisiana	23,573	$55.33	$41.01	310
Kansas	21,753	$56.88	$42.93	194
Iowa	20,633	$59.92	$44.90	189
Arkansas	20,586	$53.88	$42.41	213
Nebraska	19,395	$53.15	$40.38	166
Mississippi	18,954	$54.96	$42.52	164
Oregon	17,511	$59.45	$42.24	247
Nevada	16,976	$78.06	$56.78	206
West Virginia	15,229	$50.93	$37.01	123
Delaware	12,453	$61.95	$43.68	57
New Hampshire	12,115	$55.19	$39.16	134
Rhode Island	10,970	$73.06	$49.61	86
New Mexico	8,963	$67.57	$49.44	102
District of Columbia	8,937	$76.51	$51.08	72
Idaho	8,683	$54.82	$39.26	108
Maine	8,145	$52.79	$36.83	112
Utah	7,670	$62.85	$47.10	131
North Dakota	6,637	$50.13	$36.29	62
South Dakota	5,758	$51.30	$36.92	62
Hawaii	5,661	$63.59	$44.04	72
Montana	5,593	$59.19	$42.34	64
Alaska	4,406	$80.07	$47.74	57
Vermont	4,387	$54.65	$38.53	35
Wyoming	3,853	$62.99	$45.26	36
Puerto Rico	1,862	$73.79	$51.89	47
AA	520	$52.80	$39.10	2
Guam	419	$100.18	$61.48	8
AP	390	$79.45	$53.02	3
XX	117	$56.60	$39.54	2

Related codes

71260Ct scan of chest$62.03
71275Ct scan of blood vessels of chest$88.49
71271Low dose ct scan of chest for lung cancer screening$72.80
71270Ct scan of chest before and after contrast$107.04

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.