How much does Medicare pay for CPT 90870?

Medicare allowed an average of $103.73 per service and paid $81.03 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $471.60, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 90870?

Therapy using electrical currents. It was billed 69,529 times to 12,805 Medicare beneficiaries by 507 providers in 2024.

Does 90870 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $104.24 in an office setting and $103.72 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 90870 most?

Psychiatry, with 65,269 services from 480 clinicians. Next are Geriatric Psychiatry, Family Practice, Neuropsychiatry.

CPT 90870

Therapy using electrical currents

$103.73Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 69,529 services

Providers submitted

$471.60

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$103.73

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$81.03

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $471.60 for this code and Medicare allowed $103.73 — 4.5× 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 $81.03 (78%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $104.24
Hospital / facility: $103.72

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. 1,217 services were billed in an office setting and 68,312 in a facility.

Services: 69,529
Beneficiaries: 12,805
Providers billing it: 507
Total allowed: $7,212,243

What Medicare pays for CPT 90870

Across 69,529 services billed by 507 providers to 12,805 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $103.73 per service. That is 5.4 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 90870

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Psychiatry	65,269	12,035	$103.71	480
Geriatric Psychiatry	1,664	367	$105.35	12
Family Practice	1,319	103	$102.37	3
Neuropsychiatry	500	116	$105.45	4
Internal Medicine	277	74	$98.95	2
General Practice	165	25	$104.67	2
Neurology	113	15	$107.27	1
Pediatric Medicine	97	34	$104.17	1
Addiction Medicine	87	14	$106.08	1
Hospitalist	38	22	$99.90	1

90870 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	7,008	$108.97	$80.00	40
New York	5,681	$111.23	$79.76	41
Minnesota	4,909	$100.98	$79.12	38
Massachusetts	4,382	$107.05	$79.31	33
Illinois	3,830	$104.61	$79.86	23
Florida	3,155	$101.83	$79.79	24
New Jersey	3,028	$108.61	$79.71	13
Michigan	2,161	$101.62	$79.29	23
Ohio	1,924	$99.94	$79.13	16
North Carolina	1,919	$99.03	$79.08	27
Nebraska	1,824	$98.32	$79.85	9
Pennsylvania	1,809	$101.26	$79.51	19
Missouri	1,770	$99.69	$80.25	19
Texas	1,687	$102.59	$79.12	17
Tennessee	1,492	$97.53	$80.49	14
Connecticut	1,420	$106.96	$79.92	13
Maryland	1,398	$104.82	$80.27	9
Vermont	1,336	$100.31	$79.80	4
Colorado	1,303	$102.00	$79.03	7
Indiana	1,250	$97.33	$80.42	6
Maine	1,162	$105.87	$79.45	6
Georgia	1,145	$102.61	$78.57	8
Virginia	1,090	$101.15	$79.49	6
South Carolina	981	$99.87	$79.52	9
Utah	950	$101.38	$79.57	8
Iowa	932	$97.79	$80.04	8
Arizona	928	$101.26	$79.11	6
New Hampshire	927	$102.92	$79.38	9
Washington	811	$107.70	$80.33	6
Rhode Island	749	$103.41	$78.66	5
Kentucky	714	$92.97	$80.71	2
Oklahoma	691	$100.77	$79.26	2
Mississippi	685	$98.77	$79.06	4
South Dakota	683	$98.44	$79.34	3
Wisconsin	662	$100.85	$79.64	7
Hawaii	661	$110.40	$76.89	3
District of Columbia	471	$108.99	$80.04	2
New Mexico	449	$105.74	$80.05	5
Kansas	392	$100.47	$79.88	3
Delaware	306	$97.40	$80.85	3
Oregon	224	$104.49	$79.03	2
North Dakota	209	$99.89	$78.82	1
West Virginia	157	$105.84	$81.42	1
Arkansas	92	$96.18	$81.57	1
Louisiana	88	$100.11	$81.43	1
Alabama	84	$85.41	$78.02	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
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.