Lowest Paying CPT Codes (2026)
This page highlights lower-allowable CPT services where reimbursement optimization is less about price per line and more about throughput, clean claims, and staffing efficiency. For low-dollar services billed at high frequency, reducing denials and avoiding rebills usually creates more value than pursuing marginal fee differences.
Data sourced from CMS Physician Fee Schedule.
Based on national non-facility rates (toggle available for facility rates).
Updated for 2026.
Last updated: March 2026.
Table
Tip: click column headers to sort and use the Facility vs Non-Facility toggle.
| 11721 | Debridement of nails, 6+ | 25 | $45.09 |
| 76856 | Pelvic ultrasound non-obstetric | 24 | $105.21 |
| 64483 | Transforaminal epidural injection | 23 | $264.87 |
| 71046 | Chest X-ray, 2 views | 22 | $33.07 |
| 45385 | Colonoscopy with lesion removal | 21 | $500.01 |
| 47562 | Laparoscopic cholecystectomy | 20 | $631.95 |
| 27447 | Total knee arthroplasty | 19 | $1,159.35 |
| 27130 | Total hip arthroplasty | 18 | $1,162.02 |
| 12032 | Intermediate repair, scalp/extremities | 17 | $299.94 |
| 17110 | Destroy benign lesions, up to 14 | 16 | $111.22 |
| 11102 | Tangential biopsy, single lesion | 15 | $95.53 |
| 17003 | Each additional premalignant lesion | 14 | $6.35 |
| 17000 | Destroy premalignant lesion, first | 13 | $66.47 |
| 20610 | Major joint injection | 12 | $68.81 |
| 93000 | Electrocardiogram with interpretation | 11 | $15.36 |
| 99204 | Office/outpatient visit new | 10 | $177.36 |
| 99203 | Office/outpatient visit new | 9 | $117.57 |
| 99214 | Office/outpatient visit established | 8 | $135.61 |
| 99213 | Office/outpatient visit established | 7 | $95.19 |
| 99441 | Phone E/M 5-10 min | 6 | — |
| 99211 | Office visit, minimal | 5 | $24.38 |
| 93005 | Electrocardiogram tracing only | 4 | $7.01 |
| 81002 | Urinalysis, non-automated | 3 | $0.00 |
| 36415 | Collection of venous blood | 2 | $0.00 |
| 99080 | Special reports/forms | 1 | $0.00 |
Insights
- Low-allowable codes are often operationally simple but high volume.
- Modifier and bundling edits can disproportionately affect realized margin.
- Workflow efficiency drives performance more than per-claim reimbursement.
Why This Matters for Reimbursement Strategy
Healthcare operators frequently link to low-reimbursement CPT pages when educating clinic managers on cost-to-collect strategy and front-end claim hygiene. These insights are useful for SOP documentation and training handbooks.
This type of benchmark content is also commonly referenced by healthcare finance newsletters and coding advisory resources that discuss denial trends, charge capture, and reimbursement leakage prevention.
