How much does Medicare pay for CPT 82435?

Medicare allowed an average of $4.45 per service and paid $4.45 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $11.20, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 82435?

Blood chloride level. It was billed 192,079 times to 127,875 Medicare beneficiaries by 200 providers in 2024.

Does 82435 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $4.45 in an office setting and $4.41 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 82435 most?

Clinical Laboratory, with 135,001 services from 94 clinicians. Next are Hematology-Oncology, Family Practice, Internal Medicine.

CPT 82435

Blood chloride level

$4.45Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 192,079 services

Providers submitted

$11.20

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$4.45

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$4.45

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $11.20 for this code and Medicare allowed $4.45 — 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 $4.45 (100%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $4.45
Hospital / facility: $4.41

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. 192,068 services were billed in an office setting and 11 in a facility.

Services: 192,079
Beneficiaries: 127,875
Providers billing it: 200
Total allowed: $854,752

What Medicare pays for CPT 82435

Across 192,079 services billed by 200 providers to 127,875 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $4.45 per service. That is 1.5 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 82435

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Clinical Laboratory	135,001	104,926	$4.43	94
Hematology-Oncology	27,546	7,648	$4.49	18
Family Practice	14,594	7,453	$4.51	22
Internal Medicine	8,940	3,593	$4.50	11
Urology	1,292	839	$4.46	8
Rheumatology	1,073	772	$4.51	6
Nurse Practitioner	1,019	665	$4.50	16
Endocrinology	784	455	$4.47	2
Interventional Pain Management	342	341	$4.50	2
Physician Assistant	294	191	$4.43	4
Pathology	251	230	$4.51	4
General Surgery	236	157	$4.44	5
Emergency Medicine	213	126	$4.51	1
Pulmonary Disease	206	197	$4.47	3
Pain Management	179	177	$4.51	1

82435 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
Florida	27,646	$4.48	$4.51	26
North Carolina	21,555	$4.44	$4.44	14
New Jersey	20,771	$4.43	$4.43	5
California	20,529	$4.47	$4.48	21
Indiana	18,262	$4.49	$4.51	12
Texas	15,218	$4.43	$4.44	13
Ohio	12,572	$4.40	$4.40	5
South Carolina	12,281	$4.50	$4.51	14
Illinois	11,729	$4.48	$4.48	4
Alabama	6,776	$4.44	$4.44	1
Arizona	6,452	$4.32	$4.32	4
Pennsylvania	2,916	$4.48	$4.51	9
Colorado	2,773	$4.45	$4.45	6
Kansas	2,612	$4.46	$4.47	6
Washington	2,454	$4.41	$4.41	3
New York	1,214	$4.26	$4.26	8
Oklahoma	1,208	$3.65	$3.65	9
Georgia	749	$4.51	$4.51	2
Massachusetts	703	$4.50	$4.51	5
Louisiana	652	$4.50	$4.50	2
Virginia	539	$4.48	$4.51	3
Minnesota	490	$4.50	$4.51	3
Michigan	426	$4.45	$4.45	7
Mississippi	322	$4.51	$4.51	1
Tennessee	297	$4.09	$4.09	2
Maryland	227	$4.51	$4.51	1
Nevada	214	$4.49	$4.51	2
Oregon	174	$4.45	$4.45	3
Iowa	127	$4.51	$4.51	2
Hawaii	55	$4.50	$4.50	1
Wisconsin	39	$4.42	$4.42	1
New Hampshire	35	$4.43	$4.43	1
Kentucky	35	$4.51	$4.51	2
Maine	16	$2.12	$2.12	1
Missouri	11	$4.51	$4.51	1

Related codes

82465Cholesterol level$4.25
82436Urine chloride level$5.63
82495Chromium level to test for poisoning or deficiency$19.84

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.