How much does Medicare pay for CPT 82550?

Medicare allowed an average of $6.37 per service and paid $6.37 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $38.15, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 82550?

Creatine kinase (cardiac enzyme) level, total. It was billed 1,254,530 times to 808,287 Medicare beneficiaries by 2,603 providers in 2024.

Does 82550 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $6.37 in an office setting and $6.30 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 82550 most?

Clinical Laboratory, with 905,391 services from 492 clinicians. Next are Internal Medicine, Nurse Practitioner, Family Practice.

CPT 82550

Creatine kinase (cardiac enzyme) level, total

$6.37Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 1,254,530 services

Providers submitted

$38.15

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$6.37

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$6.37

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $38.15 for this code and Medicare allowed $6.37 — 6.0× 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 $6.37 (100%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $6.37
Hospital / facility: $6.30

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. 1,254,458 services were billed in an office setting and 72 in a facility.

Services: 1,254,530
Beneficiaries: 808,287
Providers billing it: 2,603
Total allowed: $7,991,356

What Medicare pays for CPT 82550

Across 1,254,530 services billed by 2,603 providers to 808,287 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $6.37 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 82550

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Clinical Laboratory	905,391	628,709	$6.37	492
Internal Medicine	114,930	63,855	$6.36	646
Nurse Practitioner	53,736	13,032	$6.37	243
Family Practice	52,095	34,110	$6.35	384
Rheumatology	38,380	23,082	$6.32	379
Nephrology	26,144	3,191	$6.38	35
Endocrinology	17,832	9,636	$6.35	48
Cardiology	17,823	10,918	$6.37	61
Pathology	10,835	8,419	$6.35	36
Physician Assistant	5,110	4,113	$6.32	124
Gastroenterology	2,019	1,551	$6.33	5
Interventional Cardiology	1,825	1,442	$6.37	12
Geriatric Medicine	1,411	789	$6.37	5
Hematology-Oncology	1,370	923	$6.32	19
General Practice	996	759	$6.34	7

82550 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 Jersey	164,561	$6.38	$6.38	65
California	162,001	$6.37	$6.38	198
Florida	124,267	$6.38	$6.38	226
Texas	117,431	$6.37	$6.39	231
Arizona	101,730	$6.38	$6.38	33
New York	95,478	$6.37	$6.39	246
North Carolina	73,957	$6.37	$6.38	112
Tennessee	41,062	$6.35	$6.39	173
Alabama	36,036	$6.37	$6.38	79
Ohio	34,029	$6.37	$6.38	55
Georgia	31,332	$6.37	$6.38	113
Massachusetts	30,828	$6.38	$6.38	59
Illinois	25,170	$6.37	$6.38	91
Kansas	20,529	$6.38	$6.38	23
Maryland	16,531	$6.37	$6.38	54
South Carolina	13,417	$6.34	$6.40	67
Michigan	13,406	$6.35	$6.39	53
Pennsylvania	13,365	$6.37	$6.38	38
Nevada	13,046	$6.37	$6.38	6
Oklahoma	13,020	$6.37	$6.38	25
Virginia	12,645	$6.36	$6.38	47
Indiana	11,386	$6.36	$6.38	35
Louisiana	10,273	$6.34	$6.38	44
Washington	8,727	$6.37	$6.38	25
Wisconsin	7,117	$6.29	$6.38	18
Missouri	6,886	$6.33	$6.38	112
Hawaii	6,244	$6.36	$6.38	3
Nebraska	5,755	$6.36	$6.38	37
Colorado	5,596	$6.37	$6.38	11
Kentucky	5,011	$6.36	$6.38	32
Minnesota	4,698	$6.32	$6.38	29
Arkansas	4,103	$6.34	$6.37	38
Mississippi	3,931	$6.33	$6.38	31
Oregon	3,653	$6.36	$6.39	23
Utah	2,233	$6.33	$6.38	22
Rhode Island	2,199	$6.37	$6.38	1
South Dakota	2,159	$6.36	$6.38	14
Iowa	2,050	$6.34	$6.38	38
New Mexico	1,745	$6.32	$6.38	11
Connecticut	1,556	$6.33	$6.35	17
Puerto Rico	1,310	$6.19	$6.19	22
New Hampshire	932	$6.38	$6.38	6
North Dakota	919	$6.38	$6.38	4
West Virginia	728	$6.38	$6.38	5
Idaho	449	$6.32	$6.38	8
Maine	427	$6.37	$6.39	5
Montana	212	$6.35	$6.38	4
Wyoming	161	$6.34	$6.38	6
District of Columbia	102	$6.38	$6.38	3
U.S. Virgin Islands	58	$6.38	$6.38	2
Delaware	48	$6.38	$6.38	2
Alaska	21	$6.38	$6.38	1

Related codes

82570Creatinine level to test for kidney function or muscle injury$5.06
82565Blood creatinine level$4.89
82533Cortisol (hormone) measurement$15.94
82542Chemical analysis$23.53
82523Collagen cross links test$18.30
82525Copper level$12.12
82507Citrate level$27.22
82530Cortisol (hormone) measurement$16.35
82553Creatine kinase (cardiac enzyme) level$11.29
82575Creatinine clearance measurement to test for kidney function$9.19
82552Creatine kinase (cardiac enzyme) level$13.09
82595Cryoglobulin (protein) measurement$6.34

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.