How much does Medicare pay for CPT 82746?

Medicare allowed an average of $14.39 per service and paid $14.39 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $85.63, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 82746?

Folic acid level, serum. It was billed 2,560,679 times to 2,039,982 Medicare beneficiaries by 5,438 providers in 2024.

Does 82746 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $14.39 in an office setting and $14.37 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 82746 most?

Clinical Laboratory, with 2,086,433 services from 638 clinicians. Next are Internal Medicine, Hematology-Oncology, Family Practice.

CPT 82746

Folic acid level, serum

$14.39Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 2,560,679 services

Providers submitted

$85.63

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$14.39

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$14.39

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $85.63 for this code and Medicare allowed $14.39 — 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 $14.39 (100%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $14.39
Hospital / facility: $14.37

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. 2,560,284 services were billed in an office setting and 395 in a facility.

Services: 2,560,679
Beneficiaries: 2,039,982
Providers billing it: 5,438
Total allowed: $36,848,171

What Medicare pays for CPT 82746

Across 2,560,679 services billed by 5,438 providers to 2,039,982 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $14.39 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 82746

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Clinical Laboratory	2,086,433	1,688,855	$14.40	638
Internal Medicine	114,453	84,863	$14.37	1,243
Hematology-Oncology	89,255	62,538	$14.35	694
Family Practice	87,107	67,411	$14.35	1,202
Pathology	64,136	47,016	$14.38	43
Nurse Practitioner	25,109	20,943	$14.34	644
Endocrinology	19,603	11,855	$14.38	65
Medical Oncology	16,860	12,829	$14.35	188
Physician Assistant	9,738	8,240	$14.33	261
Cardiology	9,232	5,933	$14.39	36
Rheumatology	8,555	5,689	$14.32	79
Nephrology	5,950	3,925	$14.35	64
General Practice	4,773	3,750	$14.36	26
Neurology	4,077	3,910	$14.32	83
Hematology	1,966	1,388	$14.24	16

82746 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	452,520	$14.40	$14.41	636
California	360,923	$14.40	$14.41	286
New Jersey	289,577	$14.40	$14.41	91
New York	220,383	$14.39	$14.41	602
North Carolina	173,234	$14.40	$14.41	196
Texas	138,251	$14.38	$14.41	421
Arizona	106,729	$14.39	$14.41	131
Ohio	95,358	$14.39	$14.41	204
Illinois	75,939	$14.40	$14.41	211
Alabama	74,773	$14.36	$14.41	171
Massachusetts	64,042	$14.40	$14.41	113
Tennessee	64,023	$14.36	$14.41	446
Georgia	56,768	$14.39	$14.41	205
Kansas	44,792	$14.40	$14.41	76
Washington	35,904	$14.39	$14.41	96
Michigan	29,499	$14.39	$14.41	80
Pennsylvania	26,967	$14.40	$14.41	43
Virginia	25,798	$14.37	$14.41	159
Nevada	24,917	$14.39	$14.41	43
Maryland	24,432	$14.39	$14.41	77
Wisconsin	19,001	$14.21	$14.41	14
South Carolina	14,171	$14.36	$14.41	125
Oklahoma	13,804	$14.35	$14.41	49
Indiana	13,229	$14.35	$14.41	43
Missouri	12,213	$14.35	$14.41	107
Arkansas	11,939	$14.30	$14.41	131
Oregon	9,930	$14.37	$14.41	44
North Dakota	9,689	$14.40	$14.41	8
Kentucky	9,563	$14.34	$14.41	50
Colorado	8,057	$14.40	$14.41	37
Hawaii	7,617	$14.38	$14.41	2
Louisiana	5,526	$14.38	$14.41	49
Minnesota	5,162	$14.35	$14.41	47
Mississippi	4,947	$14.27	$14.41	46
Iowa	4,552	$14.36	$14.41	84
New Mexico	3,882	$14.31	$14.41	19
Utah	3,258	$14.35	$14.41	49
Rhode Island	2,573	$14.39	$14.41	2
Connecticut	2,538	$14.35	$14.41	27
Maine	2,336	$14.38	$14.41	21
Nebraska	2,137	$14.37	$14.41	30
Puerto Rico	2,126	$14.32	$14.41	46
South Dakota	1,852	$14.36	$14.41	26
New Hampshire	1,718	$14.37	$14.41	44
West Virginia	1,687	$14.26	$14.41	14
Idaho	720	$14.40	$14.41	9
Alaska	639	$14.24	$14.41	18
U.S. Virgin Islands	455	$14.41	$14.41	3
Montana	225	$14.36	$14.41	1
Delaware	164	$14.41	$14.41	3
Wyoming	140	$14.37	$14.41	3

Related codes

82728Ferritin (blood protein) level$13.33
82784Gammaglobulin (immune system protein) measurement$9.09
82787Gammaglobulin (immune system protein) measurement$7.85
82785Ige (immune system protein) level$16.10
82747Folic acid level$17.26
82705Stool fat or lipids analysis$5.00
82725Fatty acids measurement$18.38
82777Galectin-3 level$42.22
82726Very long chain fatty acids level$19.35
82710Stool fat or lipids analysis$16.45

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.