How much does Medicare pay for CPT 73120?

Medicare allowed an average of $20.94 per service and paid $15.51 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $66.65, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 73120?

X-ray of hand, 2 views. It was billed 143,832 times to 92,355 Medicare beneficiaries by 2,262 providers in 2024.

Does 73120 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $23.77 in an office setting and $8.43 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 73120 most?

Diagnostic Radiology, with 48,525 services from 1,252 clinicians. Next are Portable X-Ray Supplier, Rheumatology, Orthopedic Surgery.

CPT 73120

X-ray of hand, 2 views

$20.94Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 143,832 services

Providers submitted

$66.65

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$20.94

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$15.51

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $66.65 for this code and Medicare allowed $20.94 — 3.2× 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 $15.51 (74%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $23.77
Hospital / facility: $8.43

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. 117,345 services were billed in an office setting and 26,487 in a facility.

Services: 143,832
Beneficiaries: 92,355
Providers billing it: 2,262
Total allowed: $3,011,842

What Medicare pays for CPT 73120

Across 143,832 services billed by 2,262 providers to 92,355 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $20.94 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 73120

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Diagnostic Radiology	48,525	32,656	$14.58	1,252
Portable X-Ray Supplier	36,360	22,591	$17.29	115
Rheumatology	22,504	12,061	$28.47	264
Orthopedic Surgery	13,808	10,008	$30.47	219
Hand Surgery	9,737	6,910	$30.79	132
Physician Assistant	2,808	1,960	$23.50	59
Independent Diagnostic Testing Facility (IDTF)	2,706	1,611	$28.99	70
Nurse Practitioner	1,970	1,127	$23.36	35
Internal Medicine	1,869	1,101	$25.34	28
Interventional Radiology	898	602	$13.80	31
Family Practice	572	352	$25.20	17
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery	461	304	$27.92	8
General Practice	331	192	$26.05	3
Radiation Oncology	283	166	$10.55	3
Allergy/ Immunology	253	127	$28.74	3

73120 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
Maryland	15,607	$16.85	$13.04	63
California	14,344	$23.03	$14.71	280
Florida	9,949	$25.43	$19.26	163
Texas	9,589	$23.31	$23.13	181
New York	7,897	$23.51	$15.67	106
North Carolina	6,833	$21.19	$19.88	102
Ohio	5,284	$18.40	$14.32	78
Virginia	4,848	$19.55	$15.36	88
Illinois	4,707	$19.59	$14.58	56
Tennessee	4,497	$22.50	$21.52	53
Arkansas	4,392	$18.05	$19.83	47
Pennsylvania	4,309	$18.22	$15.95	81
Washington	3,729	$12.23	$8.52	42
Missouri	3,637	$15.42	$12.61	63
New Jersey	3,424	$23.22	$19.52	50
Arizona	3,402	$23.49	$17.96	57
Georgia	3,139	$24.63	$21.26	61
South Carolina	3,070	$22.58	$19.53	48
Michigan	2,734	$25.12	$19.18	43
Louisiana	2,648	$20.28	$18.28	25
Massachusetts	2,618	$26.47	$17.98	43
Colorado	2,567	$25.05	$19.44	52
Mississippi	2,127	$21.66	$22.99	46
Oklahoma	1,908	$22.20	$25.91	26
Kentucky	1,780	$23.54	$19.56	42
Alabama	1,630	$24.60	$23.44	35
Oregon	1,414	$17.75	$12.80	25
Kansas	1,186	$19.67	$16.29	27
Minnesota	1,166	$18.33	$13.54	34
Nebraska	1,114	$21.63	$17.35	19
Wisconsin	991	$21.44	$16.54	24
Nevada	793	$18.81	$14.47	18
Indiana	773	$13.88	$11.09	20
Iowa	692	$20.01	$16.41	15
Connecticut	533	$19.47	$13.86	15
West Virginia	517	$12.54	$10.91	23
Vermont	495	$8.74	$6.45	11
Idaho	430	$12.75	$9.96	14
Montana	403	$13.51	$9.04	12
Utah	400	$26.96	$23.20	9
New Mexico	353	$17.69	$21.14	9
Hawaii	333	$11.74	$7.77	4
Rhode Island	266	$20.54	$14.88	5
District of Columbia	248	$24.18	$22.62	7
South Dakota	201	$7.65	$5.44	6
Delaware	164	$11.53	$10.37	7
New Hampshire	159	$17.29	$11.71	9
Wyoming	146	$11.82	$11.54	4
Maine	145	$23.11	$15.17	4
Puerto Rico	117	$22.88	$15.95	5
North Dakota	82	$13.14	$9.38	3
Alaska	42	$16.06	$9.29	2

Related codes

73130X-ray of hand$23.03
73110X-ray of wrist$24.37
73140X-ray of finger$27.96
73100X-ray of wrist$23.23

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.