How much does Medicare pay for CPT 90847?

Medicare allowed an average of $92.01 per service and paid $70.40 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $223.16, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 90847?

Family psychotherapy with patient, 50 minutes. It was billed 20,350 times to 7,200 Medicare beneficiaries by 233 providers in 2024.

Does 90847 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $90.85 in an office setting and $96.18 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 90847 most?

Licensed Clinical Social Worker, with 7,476 services from 89 clinicians. Next are Psychologist, Clinical, Psychiatry, Licensed Professional Counselor.

CPT 90847

Family psychotherapy with patient, 50 minutes

$92.01Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 20,350 services

Providers submitted

$223.16

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$92.01

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$70.40

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $223.16 for this code and Medicare allowed $92.01 — 2.4× 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 $70.40 (77%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $90.85
Hospital / facility: $96.18

The facility rate is higher for this code, which is unusual and generally means the service depends on equipment or staffing a hospital carries. 15,915 services were billed in an office setting and 4,435 in a facility.

Services: 20,350
Beneficiaries: 7,200
Providers billing it: 233
Total allowed: $1,872,404

What Medicare pays for CPT 90847

Across 20,350 services billed by 233 providers to 7,200 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $92.01 per service. That is 2.8 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 90847

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Licensed Clinical Social Worker	7,476	2,375	$78.33	89
Psychologist, Clinical	7,315	2,830	$103.93	85
Psychiatry	3,622	1,472	$100.49	35
Licensed Professional Counselor	1,004	116	$76.27	6
Nurse Practitioner	387	142	$90.11	8
Geriatric Psychiatry	241	96	$105.85	3
Marriage and Family Therapist	232	113	$78.22	4
Neurology	32	18	$108.01	1
Family Practice	23	22	$96.43	1
Neuropsychiatry	18	16	$104.33	1

90847 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
New York	3,449	$95.56	$68.11	25
New Jersey	3,337	$95.06	$68.31	34
Texas	3,061	$84.43	$67.33	17
California	2,203	$98.83	$73.63	18
Florida	1,404	$91.16	$70.31	24
Illinois	906	$90.75	$65.97	17
Massachusetts	696	$98.70	$71.96	11
Connecticut	598	$83.76	$58.55	12
Georgia	561	$88.37	$65.36	9
Pennsylvania	464	$93.30	$70.21	12
Oregon	407	$102.34	$75.91	1
Maryland	335	$81.16	$60.19	4
Arizona	283	$78.35	$59.12	5
New Hampshire	282	$89.97	$66.50	5
Washington	237	$100.81	$78.20	3
South Carolina	234	$94.16	$66.11	2
Minnesota	229	$74.85	$60.04	2
Hawaii	201	$100.80	$71.42	1
North Carolina	186	$72.36	$54.63	4
Virginia	174	$104.24	$78.31	3
Vermont	174	$74.49	$49.93	2
Iowa	104	$73.73	$55.13	2
Oklahoma	104	$97.89	$79.35	1
Indiana	104	$95.05	$76.79	2
Nevada	88	$92.14	$79.36	2
Michigan	84	$85.85	$63.97	3
Wisconsin	80	$104.04	$74.51	1
Maine	74	$75.96	$55.66	2
Ohio	62	$91.95	$66.98	2
Arkansas	52	$97.02	$76.60	1
Missouri	51	$95.84	$79.62	1
Kansas	40	$73.40	$55.33	1
Tennessee	32	$98.01	$72.66	1
Louisiana	23	$74.36	$59.49	1
Nebraska	20	$90.88	$75.92	1
Rhode Island	11	$102.23	$72.36	1

Related codes

90837Psychotherapy$127.42
90834Psychotherapy$88.04
90832Psychotherapy$65.95
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
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.