How much does Medicare pay for CPT 72070?

Medicare allowed an average of $20.40 per service and paid $15.11 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $89.16, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 72070?

X-ray of middle spine, 2 views. It was billed 168,640 times to 152,361 Medicare beneficiaries by 5,760 providers in 2024.

Does 72070 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $25.20 in an office setting and $9.60 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 72070 most?

Diagnostic Radiology, with 93,077 services from 3,564 clinicians. Next are Portable X-Ray Supplier, Orthopedic Surgery, Physician Assistant.

CPT 72070

X-ray of middle spine, 2 views

$20.40Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 168,640 services

Providers submitted

$89.16

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$20.40

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$15.11

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $89.16 for this code and Medicare allowed $20.40 — 4.4× 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 $15.11 (74%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $25.20
Hospital / facility: $9.60

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. 116,769 services were billed in an office setting and 51,871 in a facility.

Services: 168,640
Beneficiaries: 152,361
Providers billing it: 5,760
Total allowed: $3,440,256

What Medicare pays for CPT 72070

Across 168,640 services billed by 5,760 providers to 152,361 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $20.40 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 72070

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Diagnostic Radiology	93,077	89,475	$16.45	3,564
Portable X-Ray Supplier	21,300	14,774	$18.38	155
Orthopedic Surgery	18,541	15,472	$31.10	664
Physician Assistant	6,270	5,494	$24.67	261
Independent Diagnostic Testing Facility (IDTF)	6,226	5,853	$29.33	205
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation	4,641	4,263	$29.78	183
Nurse Practitioner	4,244	3,912	$24.07	164
Interventional Radiology	2,706	2,595	$14.68	119
Neurosurgery	2,122	1,749	$29.31	89
Rheumatology	2,064	2,004	$31.69	69
Family Practice	1,562	1,496	$24.42	68
Pain Management	1,411	1,307	$29.59	49
Anesthesiology	1,117	887	$24.11	30
Internal Medicine	1,017	955	$26.04	41
Interventional Pain Management	704	615	$29.19	29

72070 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	17,031	$24.99	$16.15	596
Texas	13,169	$21.28	$16.29	449
New York	12,938	$22.99	$15.03	325
Florida	12,216	$25.78	$19.51	374
Maryland	8,205	$22.11	$15.51	159
North Carolina	6,283	$18.66	$14.75	236
Pennsylvania	6,236	$16.52	$12.18	214
Ohio	6,079	$13.91	$10.60	170
New Jersey	5,634	$27.54	$18.58	217
Massachusetts	5,585	$15.74	$10.84	173
Illinois	5,407	$18.84	$13.63	186
Tennessee	4,988	$19.24	$15.90	166
Virginia	4,505	$20.11	$14.81	169
Michigan	3,690	$17.04	$12.94	149
Minnesota	3,575	$17.15	$12.54	135
Missouri	3,566	$13.74	$10.91	114
South Carolina	3,360	$21.81	$17.63	117
Arkansas	3,237	$13.58	$11.12	82
Washington	3,206	$17.87	$12.35	130
Georgia	2,934	$22.70	$18.00	132
Colorado	2,832	$21.67	$15.55	118
Louisiana	2,812	$16.92	$13.83	107
Arizona	2,738	$26.62	$20.11	107
Mississippi	2,331	$17.95	$14.81	86
Alabama	2,239	$23.59	$20.40	99
Oklahoma	2,013	$16.88	$13.74	78
Kansas	1,854	$15.74	$12.73	62
Kentucky	1,724	$17.58	$13.86	62
Indiana	1,685	$17.39	$14.11	73
Connecticut	1,634	$21.75	$14.80	70
Nevada	1,470	$24.61	$18.93	45
Nebraska	1,367	$13.37	$10.55	55
Iowa	1,335	$14.50	$11.53	60
Wisconsin	1,250	$14.41	$10.75	57
Delaware	1,112	$25.40	$18.67	28
Oregon	1,086	$14.18	$10.31	50
New Hampshire	893	$14.47	$10.47	36
Utah	803	$16.94	$12.74	39
Rhode Island	689	$20.95	$14.61	26
New Mexico	587	$20.76	$15.49	22
Hawaii	574	$17.43	$12.22	11
Idaho	570	$11.72	$9.13	20
West Virginia	461	$10.92	$8.06	24
Maine	461	$12.33	$8.70	22
Montana	455	$14.56	$10.54	23
North Dakota	336	$11.33	$7.59	13
Vermont	312	$11.64	$7.84	15
South Dakota	304	$19.34	$14.49	19
Wyoming	278	$22.69	$16.38	14
District of Columbia	268	$18.81	$12.56	13
Alaska	261	$24.14	$14.80	9
Puerto Rico	35	$32.18	$19.85	2
AP	27	$21.18	$15.00	2

Related codes

72040X-ray of upper spine$23.72
72050X-ray of upper spine$35.18
72082X-ray of entire middle and lower spine$39.67
72072X-ray of middle spine$19.03
72020X-ray of spine$14.55
72052X-ray of upper spine$42.79
72080X-ray of middle and lower spine$22.02
72083X-ray of entire middle and lower spine$38.30
72084X-ray of entire middle and lower spine$47.06
72081X-ray of entire middle and lower spine$28.90
72074X-ray of middle spine$26.65

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.