How much does Medicare pay for HCPCS J7336?

Medicare allowed an average of $3.25 per service and paid $2.59 of that, the balance being the patient's coinsurance and deductible (2024 data). Providers submitted an average of $8.17, which is what they billed rather than what they received — Medicare pays its fee schedule regardless of the charge.

What is HCPCS code J7336?

Capsaicin 8% patch, per square centimeter. It was billed 3,063,583 times to 1,585 Medicare beneficiaries by 82 providers in 2024.

Which specialty bills J7336 most?

Podiatry, with 1,740,389 services from 42 clinicians. Next are Nurse Practitioner, Neurology, Infectious Disease.

HCPCS J7336

Capsaicin 8% patch, per square centimeter

$3.25Medicare-allowed amount per service, averaged across 3,063,583 services

Providers submitted

$8.17

Asking price, not received

Medicare allowed

$3.25

The fee schedule figure

Medicare paid

$2.59

Balance is patient coinsurance

Providers submitted an average of $8.17 for this code and Medicare allowed $3.25 — 2.5× 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 $2.59 (80%); the rest is the patient’s coinsurance and deductible.

Services: 3,063,583
Beneficiaries: 1,585
Providers billing it: 82
Total allowed: $9,956,645

What Medicare pays for HCPCS J7336

Across 3,063,583 services billed by 82 providers to 1,585 beneficiaries, Medicare allowed an average of $3.25 per service. That is 1932.9 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.

This is a drug or supply code rather than a service. The unit is usually a dose or a milligram, so the per-service figure is small by construction and the total is what carries meaning — read it alongside the service count rather than on its own.

Who bills J7336

Specialty	Services	Beneficiaries	Avg allowed	Providers
Podiatry	1,740,389	828	$3.26	42
Nurse Practitioner	488,881	278	$3.26	15
Neurology	232,683	130	$3.26	7
Infectious Disease	141,120	62	$3.26	1
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation	126,140	86	$3.26	5
Anesthesiology	99,962	65	$3.23	3
Endocrinology	87,361	38	$3.22	2
Pain Management	64,168	40	$3.24	3
Certified Clinical Nurse Specialist	56,280	34	$3.26	2
Interventional Pain Management	26,599	24	$3.26	2

J7336 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
South Carolina	345,802	$3.26	$2.59	8
Florida	329,002	$3.26	$2.60	8
North Carolina	305,761	$3.26	$2.60	8
Virginia	297,368	$3.26	$2.60	8
Texas	284,202	$3.24	$2.61	7
California	194,320	$3.25	$2.59	4
Pennsylvania	158,120	$3.25	$2.59	5
New York	141,588	$3.26	$2.60	3
Kansas	139,700	$3.26	$2.59	4
South Dakota	122,640	$3.26	$2.59	2
Arizona	101,920	$3.25	$2.59	3
Oklahoma	97,440	$3.26	$2.59	4
Tennessee	96,040	$3.26	$2.59	3
Delaware	82,320	$3.26	$2.59	2
Colorado	73,640	$3.26	$2.59	2
Indiana	70,841	$3.17	$2.62	2
New Jersey	49,280	$3.26	$2.59	2
Nevada	41,440	$3.26	$2.59	1
Illinois	39,759	$3.26	$2.59	2
Louisiana	30,240	$3.27	$2.60	1
Arkansas	27,440	$3.26	$2.60	1
Maryland	17,920	$3.27	$2.61	1
Massachusetts	16,800	$3.27	$2.61	1

Related codes

J7345Aminolevulinic acid hcl for topical administration$1.66
J7328Hyaluronan or derivative$0.52
J7318Hyaluronan or derivative$6.47
J7320Hyaluronan or derivitive$5.37
J7325Hyaluronan or derivative$8.81
J7329Hyaluronan or derivative$7.16
J7322Hyaluronan or derivative$17.14
J7332Hyaluronan or derivative$10.15
J7331Hyaluronan or derivative$10.27
J7321Hyaluronan or derivative$72.31
J7323Hyaluronan or derivative$118.58
J7324Hyaluronan or derivative$123.96

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.