How much does Medicare pay for CPT 82120?

Medicare allowed an average of $5.85 per service and paid $5.85 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $14.89, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 82120?

Vaginal fluid chemical analysis for bacteria. It was billed 1,046 times to 817 Medicare beneficiaries by 22 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills 82120 most?

Obstetrics & Gynecology, with 848 services from 15 clinicians. Next are Clinical Laboratory, Nurse Practitioner, Certified Nurse Midwife.

CPT 82120

Vaginal fluid chemical analysis for bacteria

$5.85Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 1,046 services

Providers submitted

$14.89

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$5.85

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$5.85

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $14.89 for this code and Medicare allowed $5.85 — 2.5× 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 $5.85 (100%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 1,046
Beneficiaries: 817
Providers billing it: 22
Total allowed: $6,119

What Medicare pays for CPT 82120

Across 1,046 services billed by 22 providers to 817 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $5.85 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 82120

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Obstetrics & Gynecology	848	631	$5.85	15
Clinical Laboratory	104	98	$5.82	1
Nurse Practitioner	80	76	$5.87	5
Certified Nurse Midwife	14	12	$5.87	1

82120 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
New York	286	$5.87	$5.87	1
Massachusetts	171	$5.87	$5.87	2
Pennsylvania	124	$5.87	$5.87	2
Oklahoma	104	$5.82	$5.87	1
North Carolina	56	$5.87	$5.87	2
Connecticut	52	$5.87	$5.87	2
Arkansas	49	$5.75	$5.87	2
Michigan	47	$5.67	$5.87	3
Virginia	45	$5.76	$5.87	1
Tennessee	41	$5.87	$5.87	2
Texas	27	$5.87	$5.87	1
New Jersey	20	$5.87	$5.87	1
Arizona	12	$5.87	$5.87	1
Ohio	12	$5.87	$5.87	1

Related codes

82172Apolipoprotein level$20.61
82150Amylase (enzyme) level$6.34
82140Ammonia level$14.27
82105Alpha-fetoprotein (afp) level$16.40
82103Alpha-1-antitrypsin (protein) blood test$13.14
82164Angiotensin l - converting enzyme (ace) level$14.25
82175Arsenic level$18.22
82180Ascorbic acid (vitamin c) level$9.68
82107Alpha-fetoprotein (afp) analysis$62.98
82104Alpha-1-antitrypsin (protein) blood test$14.13
82139Amino acid level$16.52
82108Aluminum level$24.78

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.