How much does Medicare pay for CPT 73600?

Medicare allowed an average of $20.98 per service and paid $15.75 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $69.86, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 73600?

X-ray of ankle, 2 views. It was billed 105,010 times to 78,185 Medicare beneficiaries by 2,201 providers in 2024.

Does 73600 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $24.31 in an office setting and $7.92 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 73600 most?

Portable X-Ray Supplier, with 32,833 services from 118 clinicians. Next are Diagnostic Radiology, Orthopedic Surgery, Podiatry.

CPT 73600

X-ray of ankle, 2 views

$20.98Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 105,010 services

Providers submitted

$69.86

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$20.98

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$15.75

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $69.86 for this code and Medicare allowed $20.98 — 3.3× 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 $15.75 (75%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $24.31
Hospital / facility: $7.92

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. 83,683 services were billed in an office setting and 21,327 in a facility.

Services: 105,010
Beneficiaries: 78,185
Providers billing it: 2,201
Total allowed: $2,203,110

What Medicare pays for CPT 73600

Across 105,010 services billed by 2,201 providers to 78,185 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $20.98 per service. That is 1.3 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 73600

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Portable X-Ray Supplier	32,833	20,685	$17.32	118
Diagnostic Radiology	25,900	22,757	$10.71	977
Orthopedic Surgery	22,940	17,671	$29.51	430
Podiatry	14,171	10,335	$31.57	418
Physician Assistant	3,433	2,745	$23.58	111
Rheumatology	1,992	1,054	$32.06	26
Nurse Practitioner	1,273	1,018	$21.92	31
Independent Diagnostic Testing Facility (IDTF)	719	502	$31.10	20
Interventional Radiology	501	456	$10.66	30
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation	362	194	$28.91	3
Family Practice	296	229	$26.99	10
Sports Medicine	263	234	$30.68	12
Nuclear Medicine	108	100	$10.52	2
Emergency Medicine	105	104	$21.89	5
Radiation Oncology	31	23	$9.81	2

73600 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	13,207	$15.87	$12.17	62
California	8,797	$22.58	$14.78	214
New York	6,500	$21.89	$15.33	148
Florida	6,351	$23.74	$18.11	165
Illinois	5,522	$19.40	$14.59	98
Ohio	4,906	$19.76	$16.25	95
North Carolina	4,501	$22.54	$21.58	111
Texas	4,474	$21.25	$17.21	124
Washington	3,372	$15.25	$11.04	34
Missouri	3,323	$15.86	$12.91	62
Pennsylvania	3,170	$18.86	$17.06	80
New Jersey	2,787	$22.49	$17.30	46
Michigan	2,621	$26.84	$21.04	51
Tennessee	2,565	$22.62	$20.63	53
Arizona	2,047	$25.20	$19.29	69
Massachusetts	2,041	$25.27	$18.60	35
South Carolina	1,949	$25.72	$21.31	47
Louisiana	1,874	$20.70	$18.12	26
Indiana	1,714	$26.29	$21.56	55
Virginia	1,699	$23.99	$18.84	57
Kansas	1,584	$19.72	$16.31	30
Minnesota	1,558	$24.43	$18.19	61
Colorado	1,527	$25.91	$19.97	41
Georgia	1,334	$24.47	$20.20	42
Mississippi	1,239	$22.53	$21.90	32
Connecticut	1,080	$29.82	$21.03	21
Delaware	1,073	$20.01	$20.23	18
Arkansas	1,059	$14.67	$12.36	20
Oklahoma	1,032	$19.63	$17.04	27
Wisconsin	1,011	$16.54	$12.75	39
Nevada	996	$23.05	$17.45	18
Oregon	980	$24.53	$18.78	25
Iowa	935	$21.20	$17.29	21
Alabama	925	$24.13	$20.47	16
Hawaii	816	$17.37	$12.73	8
Kentucky	791	$24.78	$21.37	26
South Dakota	679	$23.41	$18.19	13
Idaho	517	$13.20	$10.43	19
Nebraska	463	$17.13	$13.61	21
Utah	312	$24.95	$19.55	8
Maine	275	$10.34	$7.50	6
New Hampshire	264	$30.73	$22.24	11
Rhode Island	183	$19.18	$14.21	2
Montana	180	$19.41	$15.80	11
West Virginia	175	$14.82	$13.05	8
New Mexico	166	$24.06	$19.65	7
District of Columbia	149	$12.09	$8.85	7
Vermont	116	$8.57	$6.16	3
Wyoming	64	$25.81	$20.65	3
North Dakota	47	$18.13	$13.96	3
Alaska	47	$29.37	$23.26	1
Puerto Rico	13	$7.50	$5.05	1

Related codes

73630X-ray of foot$24.19
73610X-ray of ankle$21.50
73620X-ray of foot$21.74
73660X-ray of toe, minimum of 2 views$17.55
73650X-ray of heel$22.76

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.