CPT 87081
Screening test for pathogenic organisms
Asking price, not received
The fee schedule figure
Balance is patient coinsurance
Providers submitted an average of $65.50 for this code and Medicare allowed $6.49 — 10.1× 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 $6.49 (100%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.
- Services
- 95,434
- Beneficiaries
- 81,580
- Providers billing it
- 337
- Total allowed
- $619,367
Medicare Part B, 2024
Services × allowed amount
What Medicare pays for CPT 87081
Across 95,434 services billed by 337 providers to 81,580 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $6.49 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 87081
| Specialty | Services | Beneficiaries | Avg allowed | Providers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clinical Laboratory | 86,640 | 73,946 | $6.49 | 179 |
| Pathology | 3,666 | 3,199 | $6.48 | 11 |
| Urology | 1,141 | 991 | $6.47 | 14 |
| Nurse Practitioner | 856 | 792 | $6.48 | 42 |
| Family Practice | 610 | 578 | $6.47 | 26 |
| Internal Medicine | 599 | 467 | $6.48 | 14 |
| Physician Assistant | 578 | 522 | $6.49 | 25 |
| Otolaryngology | 423 | 287 | $6.50 | 2 |
| Orthopedic Surgery | 269 | 265 | $6.50 | 5 |
| Rheumatology | 264 | 175 | $6.50 | 9 |
| Obstetrics & Gynecology | 148 | 120 | $6.46 | 3 |
| Hematology-Oncology | 133 | 132 | $6.50 | 1 |
| Emergency Medicine | 89 | 88 | $6.43 | 5 |
| General Practice | 18 | 18 | $6.50 | 1 |
87081 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 17,618 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 39 |
| New York | 8,623 | $6.49 | $6.50 | 32 |
| New Jersey | 7,925 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 9 |
| Illinois | 7,370 | $6.49 | $6.50 | 19 |
| North Carolina | 7,155 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 9 |
| Virginia | 5,755 | $6.48 | $6.50 | 8 |
| Texas | 4,525 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 13 |
| Washington | 4,468 | $6.49 | $6.50 | 8 |
| Florida | 4,202 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 7 |
| Massachusetts | 4,038 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 45 |
| Kansas | 2,944 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 4 |
| Ohio | 2,556 | $6.49 | $6.50 | 6 |
| Maryland | 2,338 | $6.49 | $6.50 | 16 |
| Alabama | 2,234 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 3 |
| Arizona | 2,165 | $6.48 | $6.50 | 11 |
| Pennsylvania | 1,586 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 5 |
| Wisconsin | 1,330 | $6.37 | $6.50 | 10 |
| Georgia | 1,270 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 2 |
| Colorado | 1,204 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 3 |
| Tennessee | 1,017 | $6.49 | $6.50 | 5 |
| Iowa | 577 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 5 |
| Mississippi | 450 | $6.49 | $6.50 | 5 |
| Utah | 435 | $6.45 | $6.50 | 13 |
| Michigan | 373 | $6.44 | $6.50 | 5 |
| Missouri | 294 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 1 |
| Oklahoma | 278 | $6.48 | $6.50 | 3 |
| Oregon | 271 | $6.45 | $6.50 | 5 |
| Louisiana | 260 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 7 |
| Puerto Rico | 258 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 4 |
| Minnesota | 227 | $6.44 | $6.50 | 1 |
| New Hampshire | 196 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 3 |
| Rhode Island | 185 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 1 |
| Nevada | 177 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 2 |
| New Mexico | 176 | $6.47 | $6.50 | 1 |
| Hawaii | 127 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 1 |
| Nebraska | 121 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 1 |
| Kentucky | 106 | $6.46 | $6.50 | 2 |
| North Dakota | 103 | $6.45 | $6.50 | 1 |
| Indiana | 95 | $6.37 | $6.50 | 2 |
| Arkansas | 94 | $6.45 | $6.50 | 5 |
| South Dakota | 94 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 3 |
| South Carolina | 76 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 5 |
| Connecticut | 39 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 2 |
| West Virginia | 28 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 2 |
| Wyoming | 27 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 1 |
| Maine | 26 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 1 |
| District of Columbia | 18 | $6.50 | $6.50 | 1 |
Related codes
- 87086Bacterial colony count$7.90
- 87088Bacterial urine culture$7.92
- 87077Bacterial culture for aerobic isolates$7.91
- 87070Bacterial culture$8.44
- 87075Bacterial culture$9.27
- 87045Stool culture$9.24
- 87046Stool culture$9.24
- 87040Bacterial blood culture$10.09
- 87015Concentration of specimen for infectious agents$6.54
- 87076Bacterial culture for anaerobic isolates$7.91
- 87084Screening test for pathogenic organisms$26.42
- 87071Bacterial culture and colony count$9.67
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.