How much does Medicare pay for CPT 93279?

Medicare allowed an average of $52.38 per service and paid $38.64 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $165.89, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is CPT code 93279?

Programming of single lead pacemaker system. It was billed 71,318 times to 56,193 Medicare beneficiaries by 2,295 providers in 2024.

Does 93279 pay differently in an office than a hospital?

Yes. The allowed amount averaged $59.21 in an office setting and $29.71 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 93279 most?

Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology, with 40,230 services from 1,142 clinicians. Next are Cardiology, Nurse Practitioner, Interventional Cardiology.

CPT 93279

Programming of single lead pacemaker system

$52.38Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 71,318 services

Providers submitted

$165.89

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$52.38

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$38.64

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $165.89 for this code and Medicare allowed $52.38 — 3.2× 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 $38.64 (74%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Office pays differently to hospital

Office / non-facility: $59.21
Hospital / facility: $29.71

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. 54,806 services were billed in an office setting and 16,512 in a facility.

Services: 71,318
Beneficiaries: 56,193
Providers billing it: 2,295
Total allowed: $3,735,637

What Medicare pays for CPT 93279

Across 71,318 services billed by 2,295 providers to 56,193 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $52.38 per service. That is 1.3 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 93279

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology	40,230	31,891	$53.01	1,142
Cardiology	21,164	16,397	$52.90	779
Nurse Practitioner	3,343	2,726	$45.25	128
Interventional Cardiology	2,629	1,954	$54.97	104
Physician Assistant	1,766	1,456	$45.04	65
Internal Medicine	1,600	1,291	$49.44	55
Cardiac Surgery	105	74	$41.16	4
Certified Clinical Nurse Specialist	87	81	$34.13	4
Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation	73	63	$74.29	1
Hospitalist	66	56	$57.46	3
Critical Care (Intensivists)	63	51	$56.80	2
Undefined Physician type	46	34	$31.45	1
Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology	42	36	$50.90	2
Interventional Radiology	30	19	$57.77	1
Family Practice	28	24	$63.16	1

93279 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	7,069	$56.25	$36.91	234
Florida	5,924	$58.92	$43.65	176
New York	4,941	$60.35	$39.88	159
Illinois	3,338	$55.73	$40.43	98
Texas	3,309	$53.83	$39.91	107
Pennsylvania	2,803	$55.36	$40.36	106
Virginia	2,470	$45.91	$33.04	78
North Carolina	2,459	$52.15	$40.01	68
Georgia	2,296	$51.05	$38.49	69
Washington	2,238	$53.19	$36.50	52
Massachusetts	2,016	$53.47	$36.38	67
New Jersey	1,966	$62.84	$41.51	64
Michigan	1,949	$40.12	$29.30	63
Minnesota	1,891	$50.65	$36.23	61
Missouri	1,688	$45.56	$34.99	58
Ohio	1,686	$47.88	$36.45	75
Tennessee	1,625	$47.62	$36.61	47
Indiana	1,526	$53.42	$40.58	60
Arizona	1,381	$57.77	$43.26	45
Wisconsin	1,375	$45.51	$34.43	44
Maryland	1,310	$65.93	$44.69	43
South Carolina	1,283	$54.59	$41.78	53
Kentucky	1,220	$53.18	$41.88	33
Colorado	1,204	$56.11	$40.38	34
Oklahoma	892	$36.16	$28.01	19
Oregon	875	$40.91	$28.95	28
Kansas	816	$41.47	$32.66	24
Alabama	798	$47.17	$36.20	23
Mississippi	779	$42.52	$32.42	28
Arkansas	734	$37.64	$28.94	27
Iowa	715	$40.23	$31.00	24
Connecticut	705	$58.18	$39.19	26
Nevada	694	$57.13	$41.22	21
Nebraska	666	$51.88	$40.29	23
Louisiana	531	$51.71	$40.74	17
North Dakota	510	$29.51	$21.27	9
Montana	443	$46.77	$33.38	14
Maine	394	$33.42	$23.69	16
West Virginia	357	$32.66	$24.61	13
Vermont	328	$40.95	$28.19	11
Utah	317	$55.16	$41.50	11
Delaware	300	$45.94	$31.17	10
South Dakota	288	$29.46	$21.55	11
New Hampshire	281	$31.72	$23.43	10
District of Columbia	234	$66.40	$44.01	6
Idaho	162	$36.67	$28.36	8
New Mexico	160	$32.17	$22.94	8
Alaska	129	$54.35	$33.06	3
Rhode Island	103	$38.22	$28.62	5
Hawaii	79	$62.21	$42.39	3
Wyoming	61	$62.30	$40.41	3

Related codes

93296Evaluation of single$21.59
93294Evaluation of single$28.57
93298Evaluation of cardiac rhythm monitor system$76.45
93297Evaluation of implantable heart and blood vessel monitoring system$45.47
93280Programming of dual lead pacemaker system$61.84
93295Evaluation of single$35.37
93229Electrocardiogram (ecg) up to 30 days continuous$1018.21
93247Heart rhythm analysis and report of continous external ekg over 8-15 d$299.31
93248Heart rhythm review and interpretation of continous external ekg over$24.98
93228Electrocardiogram (ecg) up to 30 days continuous$24.32
93243Heart rhythm analysis and report of continous external ekg over more t$279.98
93244Heart rhythm review$22.39

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.