How much does Medicare pay for CPT 76942?

Medicare allowed an average of $45.45 per service and paid $35.29 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $327.43, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 76942?

Ultrasonic guidance for needle placement. It was billed 508,079 times to 374,527 Medicare beneficiaries by 12,714 providers in 2024.

Does 76942 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $55.36 in an office setting and $29.29 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 76942 most?

Anesthesiology, with 91,374 services from 3,027 clinicians. Next are Diagnostic Radiology, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Urology.

CPT 76942

Ultrasonic guidance for needle placement

$45.45Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 508,079 services

Providers submitted

$327.43

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$45.45

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$35.29

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $327.43 for this code and Medicare allowed $45.45 — 7.2× 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 $35.29 (78%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $55.36
Hospital / facility: $29.29

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. 314,892 services were billed in an office setting and 193,187 in a facility.

Services: 508,079
Beneficiaries: 374,527
Providers billing it: 12,714
Total allowed: $23,092,191

What Medicare pays for CPT 76942

Across 508,079 services billed by 12,714 providers to 374,527 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $45.45 per service. That is 1.4 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 76942

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Anesthesiology	91,374	80,041	$34.80	3,027
Diagnostic Radiology	49,697	47,336	$32.10	2,029
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation	48,581	28,579	$54.66	792
Urology	46,885	45,714	$41.66	1,714
Pain Management	30,188	16,931	$53.05	443
Physician Assistant	25,046	14,607	$42.80	488
Interventional Radiology	23,381	22,201	$32.66	927
Podiatry	22,694	12,675	$57.78	405
Nurse Practitioner	18,360	8,417	$46.28	259
Orthopedic Surgery	17,147	13,890	$56.44	314
Family Practice	17,087	10,615	$52.41	308
Interventional Pain Management	16,192	8,484	$55.76	226
Sports Medicine	14,405	11,130	$50.53	335
Rheumatology	10,963	5,957	$60.63	95
Hand Surgery	10,690	8,797	$58.55	110

76942 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	67,774	$53.02	$37.70	1,325
Florida	54,697	$49.98	$38.56	965
New York	39,868	$50.44	$35.21	836
Texas	36,079	$42.33	$33.76	981
Illinois	20,127	$44.69	$34.10	493
Pennsylvania	18,636	$40.68	$31.27	560
Arizona	17,846	$47.03	$37.07	371
New Jersey	17,165	$54.30	$38.78	357
Ohio	16,408	$36.79	$29.16	531
Virginia	13,599	$44.81	$34.03	360
Michigan	13,050	$46.00	$35.92	372
North Carolina	12,314	$42.05	$34.15	411
Maryland	12,073	$50.06	$37.11	242
Massachusetts	9,623	$40.15	$29.43	318
Tennessee	9,330	$38.24	$31.80	266
South Carolina	8,605	$41.28	$33.43	249
Missouri	8,477	$37.23	$30.02	252
Georgia	8,451	$41.48	$33.16	304
Indiana	8,288	$41.08	$33.89	238
Minnesota	7,819	$40.06	$30.52	246
Wisconsin	7,718	$37.64	$30.31	247
Washington	7,578	$44.96	$33.28	231
Oklahoma	7,432	$37.21	$30.60	170
Kentucky	7,074	$41.61	$33.80	156
Colorado	6,687	$44.83	$34.21	209
Connecticut	5,688	$43.18	$31.96	166
Arkansas	5,013	$41.20	$35.30	125
Alabama	4,773	$40.99	$34.79	132
Kansas	4,703	$36.68	$29.70	129
Mississippi	4,465	$38.54	$32.47	114
Louisiana	3,853	$40.75	$33.56	107
Nevada	3,774	$46.06	$36.70	109
Oregon	3,575	$43.42	$33.50	144
Utah	3,566	$42.14	$33.77	125
Nebraska	3,496	$36.16	$30.19	99
Iowa	3,382	$37.63	$30.59	98
Idaho	2,787	$33.58	$26.81	78
Alaska	2,513	$65.02	$39.58	40
New Mexico	2,446	$45.59	$36.63	72
Montana	2,125	$34.75	$26.66	46
New Hampshire	2,106	$42.21	$32.00	55
South Dakota	1,956	$42.60	$32.87	43
Delaware	1,823	$43.23	$33.65	46
North Dakota	1,479	$30.92	$24.11	41
Maine	1,475	$45.33	$33.88	39
West Virginia	1,337	$34.63	$27.53	47
Rhode Island	1,300	$39.88	$31.13	40
District of Columbia	1,077	$44.59	$31.66	40
Hawaii	956	$43.12	$32.11	30
Wyoming	880	$38.79	$30.10	28
Vermont	468	$30.52	$23.49	19
Guam	168	$52.57	$36.85	5
U.S. Virgin Islands	68	$52.55	$44.22	1
Puerto Rico	61	$57.10	$43.08	3
AE	36	$45.88	$32.57	2
ZZ	12	$28.51	$23.13	1

Related codes

76937Ultrasonic guidance for blood vessel access$17.11
76981Ultrasound scan of organ tissue for measuring elasticity$81.38
76998Ultrasonic guidance during surgery$51.66
76982Ultrasound scan of growth for measuring elasticity$63.16
76965Ultrasonic guidance for administration of radiation therapy$69.84
76984Ultrasound of chest aorta during surgery$29.82
76983Ultrasound scan of growth for measuring elasticity$52.08

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.