How much does Medicare pay for CPT 87176?

Medicare allowed an average of $5.74 per service and paid $5.74 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $35.69, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 87176?

Tissue preparation for culture. It was billed 1,517 times to 1,371 Medicare beneficiaries by 23 providers in 2024.

Does 87176 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $5.74 in an office setting and $5.76 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 87176 most?

Clinical Laboratory, with 1,009 services from 22 clinicians. Next are Pathology.

CPT 87176

Tissue preparation for culture

$5.74Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 1,517 services

Providers submitted

$35.69

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$5.74

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$5.74

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $35.69 for this code and Medicare allowed $5.74 — 6.2× 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 $5.74 (100%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $5.74
Hospital / facility: $5.76

The facility rate is higher for this code, which is unusual and generally means the service depends on equipment or staffing a hospital carries. 1,485 services were billed in an office setting and 32 in a facility.

Services: 1,517
Beneficiaries: 1,371
Providers billing it: 23
Total allowed: $8,708

What Medicare pays for CPT 87176

Across 1,517 services billed by 23 providers to 1,371 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $5.74 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 87176

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Clinical Laboratory	1,009	927	$5.73	22
Pathology	508	444	$5.76	1

87176 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
Georgia	508	$5.76	$5.76	1
Texas	232	$5.76	$5.76	4
Arizona	151	$5.69	$5.76	1
North Carolina	84	$5.76	$5.76	1
New Jersey	58	$5.76	$5.76	1
Alabama	57	$5.76	$5.76	1
Wisconsin	54	$5.65	$5.76	1
Florida	48	$5.67	$5.76	2
New York	46	$5.76	$5.76	1
Iowa	38	$5.76	$5.76	1
Tennessee	35	$5.76	$5.76	1
Washington	32	$5.76	$5.76	1
Minnesota	30	$5.76	$5.76	1
Pennsylvania	30	$5.76	$5.76	1
New Mexico	30	$5.44	$5.76	1
Ohio	28	$5.76	$5.76	1
Oklahoma	24	$5.76	$5.76	1
California	18	$5.76	$5.76	1
Nebraska	14	$5.76	$5.76	1

Related codes

87186Evaluation of antimicrobial drug (antibiotic$8.47
87150Identification of organisms by genetic analysis$34.30
87177Smear for parasites$8.69
87184Evaluation of antimicrobial drug (antibiotic$7.32
87147Identification of organisms by immunologic analysis$5.08
87101Fungal culture (mold or yeast) of skin$7.56
87102Fungal culture (mold or yeast)$8.23
87116Culture for acid-fast bacilli$10.56
87106Fungal culture$10.10
87181Evaluation of antimicrobial drug (antibiotic$4.63
87107Culture for identification of yeast$10.11
87185Detection of antimicrobial drug (antibiotic$4.65

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.