How much does Medicare pay for CPT 83921?

Medicare allowed an average of $20.73 per service and paid $20.73 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $212.86, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 83921?

Organic acid level. It was billed 201,409 times to 161,645 Medicare beneficiaries by 183 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills 83921 most?

Clinical Laboratory, with 201,109 services from 174 clinicians. Next are Pathology, Internal Medicine, Family Practice.

CPT 83921

Organic acid level

$20.73Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 201,409 services

Providers submitted

$212.86

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$20.73

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$20.73

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $212.86 for this code and Medicare allowed $20.73 — 10.3× 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 $20.73 (100%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 201,409
Beneficiaries: 161,645
Providers billing it: 183
Total allowed: $4,175,209

What Medicare pays for CPT 83921

Across 201,409 services billed by 183 providers to 161,645 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $20.73 per service. That is 1.2 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 83921

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Clinical Laboratory	201,109	161,362	$20.73	174
Pathology	196	182	$20.79	3
Internal Medicine	49	49	$20.79	2
Family Practice	40	39	$20.54	3
Emergency Medicine	15	13	$20.79	1

83921 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
Massachusetts	35,273	$20.78	$20.79	6
California	26,619	$20.41	$20.79	16
North Carolina	25,061	$20.77	$20.79	8
New Jersey	21,980	$20.78	$20.79	11
Florida	14,749	$20.79	$20.79	9
Texas	10,465	$20.78	$20.79	11
Arizona	8,589	$20.75	$20.79	4
Georgia	5,375	$20.79	$20.79	1
Ohio	5,022	$20.77	$20.79	10
New York	4,633	$20.78	$20.79	8
Washington	4,394	$20.77	$20.79	4
Kentucky	4,053	$20.77	$20.79	3
Illinois	3,974	$20.79	$20.79	5
Kansas	3,376	$20.77	$20.78	4
Minnesota	3,248	$20.75	$20.79	9
Pennsylvania	3,217	$20.76	$20.79	5
Maryland	2,294	$20.79	$20.79	4
Virginia	2,253	$20.76	$20.79	5
Utah	2,142	$20.75	$20.79	4
Colorado	1,974	$20.79	$20.79	5
Oregon	1,898	$20.75	$20.79	6
Alabama	1,858	$20.77	$20.79	3
Nevada	1,613	$20.78	$20.79	2
Hawaii	1,350	$20.73	$20.79	2
Tennessee	1,210	$20.72	$20.79	4
Wisconsin	899	$20.68	$20.79	4
Michigan	786	$20.73	$20.79	6
Rhode Island	716	$20.79	$20.79	1
Oklahoma	702	$20.76	$20.79	4
Iowa	495	$20.58	$20.79	3
New Mexico	307	$20.71	$20.79	1
Indiana	230	$20.71	$20.79	2
Maine	212	$20.79	$20.79	1
U.S. Virgin Islands	165	$20.79	$20.79	2
South Dakota	90	$20.62	$20.79	3
Idaho	57	$20.79	$20.79	1
Connecticut	46	$20.79	$20.79	1
North Dakota	32	$20.79	$20.79	2
New Hampshire	28	$20.79	$20.79	1
Louisiana	13	$20.79	$20.79	1
Mississippi	11	$20.79	$20.79	1

Related codes

83970Parathormone (parathyroid hormone) level$40.37
83993Stool calprotectin (protein) level$19.22
83986Body fluid ph level$3.50
83935Urine osmolality (concentration) measurement$6.67
83945Oxalate level$14.15
83930Blood osmolality (concentration) measurement$6.48
83937Osteocalcin (bone protein) level$29.21
83915Nucleotidase 5' (enzyme) level$10.93
83951Oncoprotein (cancer related gene) measurement$63.03

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.