How much does Medicare pay for CPT 82951?

Medicare allowed an average of $12.59 per service and paid $12.59 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $96.05, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 82951?

Blood glucose (sugar) tolerance test, 3 specimens. It was billed 3,552 times to 3,340 Medicare beneficiaries by 55 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills 82951 most?

Clinical Laboratory, with 3,197 services from 49 clinicians. Next are Cardiology, Physician Assistant, Endocrinology.

CPT 82951

Blood glucose (sugar) tolerance test, 3 specimens

$12.59Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 3,552 services

Providers submitted

$96.05

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$12.59

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$12.59

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $96.05 for this code and Medicare allowed $12.59 — 7.6× 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 $12.59 (100%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 3,552
Beneficiaries: 3,340
Providers billing it: 55
Total allowed: $44,720

What Medicare pays for CPT 82951

Across 3,552 services billed by 55 providers to 3,340 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $12.59 per service. 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 82951

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Clinical Laboratory	3,197	3,038	$12.59	49
Cardiology	208	207	$12.61	1
Physician Assistant	74	25	$12.61	1
Endocrinology	57	55	$12.61	3
Internal Medicine	16	15	$12.61	1

82951 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	627	$12.61	$12.61	5
California	436	$12.58	$12.61	5
Texas	433	$12.61	$12.61	6
New Jersey	345	$12.61	$12.61	4
Washington	255	$12.61	$12.61	3
Arizona	202	$12.61	$12.61	3
North Carolina	198	$12.61	$12.61	2
Illinois	137	$12.61	$12.61	2
Ohio	128	$12.61	$12.61	3
Kansas	103	$12.61	$12.61	2
Georgia	97	$12.61	$12.61	1
Massachusetts	93	$12.61	$12.61	3
New York	79	$12.61	$12.61	2
Tennessee	64	$12.44	$12.61	2
Alabama	62	$12.61	$12.61	1
Virginia	56	$12.61	$12.61	1
Nevada	51	$12.61	$12.61	1
Oklahoma	41	$12.35	$12.61	2
Pennsylvania	37	$12.61	$12.61	2
Puerto Rico	34	$11.91	$12.61	1
Idaho	25	$12.61	$12.61	1
Colorado	18	$12.61	$12.61	1
Louisiana	16	$12.61	$12.61	1
Oregon	15	$12.61	$12.61	1

Related codes

82947Blood glucose (sugar) level$3.83
82962Blood glucose (sugar) test performed by hand-held instrument$3.18
82977Glutamyltransferase (liver enzyme) level$7.03
82985Glycated protein level$16.27
82945Glucose (sugar) level on body fluid$3.83
82948Blood glucose (sugar) measurement$4.90
82955G6pd (enzyme) level$9.50
82950Blood glucose (sugar) level after receiving dose of glucose$4.53
82978Glutathione (protein) level$15.12
82941Gastrin (gi tract hormone) level$17.17
82952Blood glucose (sugar) tolerance test$3.84

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.