How much does Medicare pay for CPT 90832?

Medicare allowed an average of $65.95 per service and paid $51.15 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $128.27, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 90832?

Psychotherapy, 30 minutes. It was billed 1,808,432 times to 314,080 Medicare beneficiaries by 6,210 providers in 2024.

Does 90832 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $66.52 in an office setting and $64.13 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 90832 most?

Licensed Clinical Social Worker, with 807,484 services from 3,089 clinicians. Next are Psychologist, Clinical, Licensed Professional Counselor, Psychiatry.

CPT 90832

Psychotherapy, 30 minutes

$65.95Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 1,808,432 services

Providers submitted

$128.27

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$65.95

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$51.15

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $128.27 for this code and Medicare allowed $65.95 — 1.9× 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 $51.15 (78%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $66.52
Hospital / facility: $64.13

The office rate is higher because the practice supplies the room, staff and equipment out of that payment. In a hospital the facility bills those separately, so the clinician's share is smaller — the total cost to Medicare is usually higher, not lower. 1,382,682 services were billed in an office setting and 425,750 in a facility.

Services: 1,808,432
Beneficiaries: 314,080
Providers billing it: 6,210
Total allowed: $119,266,090

What Medicare pays for CPT 90832

Across 1,808,432 services billed by 6,210 providers to 314,080 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $65.95 per service. That is 5.8 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 90832

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Licensed Clinical Social Worker	807,484	123,500	$57.51	3,089
Psychologist, Clinical	804,088	147,117	$75.19	1,941
Licensed Professional Counselor	96,901	19,051	$57.29	582
Psychiatry	45,112	10,850	$75.17	278
Nurse Practitioner	32,500	8,365	$62.14	194
Marriage and Family Therapist	13,293	3,021	$58.07	70
Physician Assistant	2,852	792	$65.48	6
Internal Medicine	2,021	294	$77.41	7
Family Practice	827	187	$71.87	11
Certified Clinical Nurse Specialist	802	221	$61.94	10
Unknown Supplier/Provider Specialty	624	104	$74.19	4
Emergency Medicine	508	96	$72.51	1
Geriatric Psychiatry	251	80	$80.51	4
Neurology	247	89	$76.04	2
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation	240	50	$74.21	3

90832 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	304,908	$74.35	$56.58	402
New York	260,001	$71.47	$51.30	723
Texas	155,376	$63.23	$49.64	388
Florida	149,941	$64.66	$50.65	404
New Jersey	133,148	$62.47	$46.03	316
Pennsylvania	83,623	$66.45	$51.09	317
Indiana	70,218	$59.79	$47.89	145
Illinois	63,676	$64.65	$49.15	289
Massachusetts	60,639	$64.02	$48.26	314
Connecticut	60,514	$63.19	$47.30	174
Maryland	57,911	$63.95	$46.82	318
North Carolina	52,354	$59.59	$46.64	185
Tennessee	38,791	$63.13	$49.55	113
Michigan	38,308	$61.92	$47.58	196
Kentucky	34,753	$58.76	$45.79	127
Ohio	28,188	$62.23	$48.84	188
Oklahoma	24,197	$55.62	$44.42	88
Georgia	23,212	$60.14	$46.66	105
Virginia	16,503	$63.27	$48.41	101
Missouri	13,156	$61.65	$48.90	85
Alabama	9,826	$57.83	$45.20	51
New Hampshire	9,728	$64.37	$49.24	88
Arkansas	9,436	$56.21	$43.40	73
Kansas	8,056	$59.97	$47.59	43
Rhode Island	7,568	$62.34	$47.54	26
Minnesota	6,610	$62.50	$47.69	141
Louisiana	6,490	$63.14	$48.86	55
New Mexico	6,488	$66.90	$51.63	30
Iowa	5,995	$56.09	$44.12	57
Oregon	5,682	$66.32	$48.10	96
South Carolina	5,571	$60.70	$48.63	52
Colorado	4,896	$64.66	$49.45	61
Washington	4,761	$68.91	$50.91	74
Nevada	4,735	$57.86	$44.98	11
District of Columbia	4,215	$62.59	$44.55	15
Arizona	4,167	$65.03	$50.49	47
West Virginia	4,068	$65.77	$51.74	24
Maine	3,848	$53.95	$42.43	26
Vermont	3,835	$61.16	$45.80	29
Mississippi	3,564	$55.57	$43.63	30
Wisconsin	3,337	$65.39	$50.55	44
Nebraska	2,597	$57.78	$44.79	21
Delaware	2,435	$70.89	$54.21	24
Utah	2,250	$62.23	$47.93	23
Idaho	1,569	$57.70	$44.32	17
Wyoming	1,283	$57.53	$43.05	12
South Dakota	1,233	$56.89	$45.94	10
Montana	1,208	$58.73	$45.93	14
Puerto Rico	1,079	$68.55	$51.86	10
Hawaii	869	$64.61	$48.61	7
North Dakota	806	$57.66	$43.56	9
Alaska	443	$84.81	$45.02	10
AP	213	$56.96	$45.54	1
AE	153	$57.91	$43.21	1

Related codes

90837Psychotherapy$127.42
90834Psychotherapy$88.04
90833Psychotherapy$64.86
90836Psychotherapy$88.70
90868Treatment using magnetic field to stimulate nerve cells in brain, subs$183.83
90853Group psychotherapy$23.01
90870Therapy using electrical currents$103.73
90838Psychotherapy$113.05
90847Family psychotherapy$92.01
90839Psychotherapy for crisis$113.12
90846Family psychotherapy without patient$83.43
90867Treatment using magnetic field to stimulate nerve cells in brain, init$285.49

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.