How much does Medicare pay for CPT 87184?

Medicare allowed an average of $7.32 per service and paid $7.32 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $24.35, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 87184?

Evaluation of antimicrobial drug (antibiotic, antifungal, antiviral). It was billed 112,555 times to 53,860 Medicare beneficiaries by 272 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills 87184 most?

Clinical Laboratory, with 97,013 services from 136 clinicians. Next are Urology, Pathology, Nurse Practitioner.

CPT 87184

Evaluation of antimicrobial drug (antibiotic, antifungal, antiviral)

$7.32Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 112,555 services

Providers submitted

$24.35

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$7.32

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$7.32

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $24.35 for this code and Medicare allowed $7.32 — 3.3× 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 $7.32 (100%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 112,555
Beneficiaries: 53,860
Providers billing it: 272
Total allowed: $823,903

What Medicare pays for CPT 87184

Across 112,555 services billed by 272 providers to 53,860 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $7.32 per service. That is 2.1 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 87184

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Clinical Laboratory	97,013	45,806	$7.32	136
Urology	11,457	4,886	$7.31	67
Pathology	1,658	1,378	$7.29	5
Nurse Practitioner	855	684	$7.29	17
Internal Medicine	555	422	$7.33	21
Family Practice	270	181	$7.33	8
Obstetrics & Gynecology	175	119	$7.33	4
Physician Assistant	146	116	$7.33	8
Emergency Medicine	112	37	$7.33	1
Otolaryngology	104	80	$7.33	1
Cardiology	85	57	$7.25	1
Hematology-Oncology	69	53	$7.33	1
Rheumatology	30	27	$7.33	1
General Practice	26	14	$7.33	1

87184 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	33,107	$7.32	$7.33	66
Florida	23,923	$7.33	$7.33	14
New York	9,103	$7.33	$7.33	12
Louisiana	8,683	$7.31	$7.33	25
Pennsylvania	7,927	$7.32	$7.33	6
New Jersey	7,488	$7.32	$7.33	10
Alabama	5,766	$7.28	$7.33	5
Illinois	4,803	$7.33	$7.33	13
Arkansas	2,766	$7.31	$7.33	1
Texas	1,577	$7.33	$7.33	9
Oklahoma	1,492	$7.29	$7.33	15
Massachusetts	943	$7.33	$7.33	2
Arizona	695	$7.31	$7.33	2
North Carolina	628	$7.33	$7.33	26
Maryland	598	$7.33	$7.33	8
Tennessee	414	$7.24	$7.33	14
Ohio	335	$7.31	$7.33	8
Washington	282	$7.33	$7.33	4
Wisconsin	251	$7.33	$7.33	5
Iowa	249	$7.33	$7.33	1
Virginia	237	$7.33	$7.33	2
Hawaii	177	$7.28	$7.33	2
Oregon	161	$7.26	$7.33	1
Minnesota	154	$7.20	$7.33	2
South Carolina	129	$7.33	$7.33	1
Colorado	125	$7.33	$7.33	3
Kentucky	90	$7.33	$7.33	1
Missouri	88	$7.33	$7.33	1
Puerto Rico	71	$7.33	$7.33	2
South Dakota	55	$7.33	$7.33	1
Nevada	46	$7.33	$7.33	1
Georgia	42	$7.33	$7.33	2
North Dakota	32	$7.17	$7.33	1
Nebraska	28	$7.33	$7.33	2
Kansas	26	$7.33	$7.33	1
New Mexico	26	$7.33	$7.33	1
Michigan	22	$7.33	$7.33	1
Mississippi	16	$7.33	$7.33	1

Related codes

87186Evaluation of antimicrobial drug (antibiotic$8.47
87150Identification of organisms by genetic analysis$34.30
87177Smear for parasites$8.69
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
87118Identification of mycobacteria (tb or tb like organism)$14.31

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.