How much does Medicare pay for CPT 73080?

Medicare allowed an average of $16.52 per service and paid $12.18 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $73.12, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 73080?

X-ray of elbow, minimum of 3 views. It was billed 247,437 times to 218,208 Medicare beneficiaries by 9,843 providers in 2024.

Does 73080 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $27.53 in an office setting and $8.37 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 73080 most?

Diagnostic Radiology, with 164,625 services from 6,968 clinicians. Next are Orthopedic Surgery, Hand Surgery, Physician Assistant.

CPT 73080

X-ray of elbow, minimum of 3 views

$16.52Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 247,437 services

Providers submitted

$73.12

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$16.52

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$12.18

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $73.12 for this code and Medicare allowed $16.52 — 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 $12.18 (74%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $27.53
Hospital / facility: $8.37

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. 105,211 services were billed in an office setting and 142,226 in a facility.

Services: 247,437
Beneficiaries: 218,208
Providers billing it: 9,843
Total allowed: $4,087,659

What Medicare pays for CPT 73080

Across 247,437 services billed by 9,843 providers to 218,208 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $16.52 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 73080

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Diagnostic Radiology	164,625	155,238	$10.81	6,968
Orthopedic Surgery	33,189	24,476	$31.75	1,211
Hand Surgery	17,208	12,639	$31.46	484
Physician Assistant	8,994	7,014	$24.57	408
Portable X-Ray Supplier	8,305	5,591	$19.09	93
Interventional Radiology	4,621	4,400	$10.74	220
Sports Medicine	2,373	1,940	$31.37	117
Family Practice	2,160	1,944	$28.08	104
Nurse Practitioner	1,665	1,352	$24.13	80
Independent Diagnostic Testing Facility (IDTF)	1,024	890	$29.10	49
Internal Medicine	712	630	$25.73	25
Rheumatology	675	352	$30.75	9
Emergency Medicine	629	619	$25.03	27
Radiation Oncology	368	318	$9.14	11
Pediatric Medicine	146	138	$19.83	6

73080 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	26,962	$18.84	$12.30	1,004
New York	20,359	$19.01	$12.63	608
Florida	19,448	$20.05	$15.01	724
Illinois	14,728	$17.38	$12.57	538
Texas	14,153	$16.72	$13.22	609
Massachusetts	10,664	$14.86	$10.06	362
Pennsylvania	9,990	$16.07	$12.08	407
Virginia	7,952	$16.67	$12.10	314
New Jersey	7,573	$21.72	$15.22	308
Maryland	7,552	$18.60	$13.50	231
Ohio	7,371	$12.69	$9.70	297
North Carolina	6,942	$15.29	$12.07	311
Michigan	6,052	$12.31	$9.20	263
Georgia	5,532	$18.33	$14.55	247
Arizona	5,457	$19.81	$14.64	214
Minnesota	5,371	$10.39	$7.53	251
Missouri	5,061	$11.83	$9.10	216
Tennessee	4,756	$17.25	$14.26	188
Washington	4,651	$14.94	$10.19	197
South Carolina	4,335	$17.48	$13.99	189
Colorado	4,148	$15.19	$10.92	187
Louisiana	3,421	$16.63	$13.78	150
Indiana	3,407	$13.79	$10.81	170
Wisconsin	3,260	$11.33	$8.44	149
Kansas	3,082	$14.11	$11.30	123
Oklahoma	2,788	$12.42	$10.67	126
Kentucky	2,645	$12.76	$10.19	120
Alabama	2,499	$13.01	$10.61	136
Connecticut	2,447	$15.84	$11.00	109
Iowa	2,001	$10.59	$7.96	92
Nevada	1,916	$17.37	$12.93	92
Nebraska	1,848	$12.99	$10.18	86
Mississippi	1,837	$13.28	$10.92	82
Arkansas	1,798	$18.16	$15.41	71
New Hampshire	1,704	$11.31	$7.95	69
Rhode Island	1,654	$16.19	$11.43	68
West Virginia	1,535	$8.54	$6.31	65
Oregon	1,475	$14.88	$11.36	71
New Mexico	1,237	$11.58	$8.42	57
Utah	881	$14.48	$10.85	46
Delaware	812	$15.29	$11.74	29
Idaho	776	$8.21	$6.21	36
South Dakota	774	$14.23	$10.63	31
North Dakota	737	$11.54	$8.47	26
Hawaii	611	$15.60	$10.51	28
Montana	576	$15.59	$11.52	27
District of Columbia	573	$15.87	$11.30	22
Maine	549	$13.55	$9.97	26
Vermont	487	$8.70	$6.09	21
Wyoming	446	$13.63	$9.94	22
Alaska	437	$20.59	$13.13	22
AA	70	$11.02	$8.65	2
Guam	46	$34.73	$22.41	1
AP	26	$8.75	$6.50	2
Puerto Rico	25	$8.22	$6.26	1

Related codes

73030X-ray of shoulder$22.04
73060X-ray of upper arm$11.37
73090X-ray of forearm$10.89
73070X-ray of elbow$16.13
73020X-ray of shoulder$11.35
73010X-ray of shoulder blade$22.56
73000X-ray of collar bone$17.88
73050X-ray of both collar bones joints$26.32
73040Review by radiologist of shoulder joint image$119.55

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.