The Most Common Medical Procedures and What They Cost

Medicare processes over 1.81B services annually. Here are the most common procedures by volume:

#	Procedure	Services	Avg Cost
1	Provision of covid-19 test, nonprescription self-administered and self-collected use, fda approved, authorized or cleared, one test count	153.5M	$11.62
2	Established patient office or other outpatient visit, 30-39 minutes	100.6M	$117.90
3	Ground mileage, per statute mile	99.5M	$9.23
4	Established patient office or other outpatient visit, 20-29 minutes	71.5M	$83.97
5	Therapy procedure using exercise to develop strength, endurance, range of motion, and flexibility, each 15 minutes	64.8M	$23.39
6	Travel allowance one way in connection with medically necessary laboratory specimen collection drawn from home bound or nursing home bound patient; prorated miles actually travelled	46.3M	$1.05
7	Insertion of needle into vein for collection of blood sample	40.5M	$8.18
8	Therapy procedure using functional activities	37.1M	$32.57
9	Subsequent hospital care with moderate levelof medical decision making, if using time, at least 35 minutes	35.6M	$77.77
10	Therapy procedure to re-educate brain-to-nerve-to-muscle function, each 15 minutes	30.0M	$27.97
11	Therapy procedure using manual technique, each 15 minutes	29.5M	$21.06
12	Blood test, comprehensive group of blood chemicals	27.1M	$10.33
13	Complete blood cell count (red cells, white blood cell, platelets), automated test and automated differential white blood cell count	26.2M	$7.59
14	Subsequent hospital care with moderate levelof medical decision making, if using time, at least 50 minutes	22.3M	$118.00
15	Destruction of precancer skin growth, 2-14 growths	19.4M	$6.26

Takeaway

Office visits and basic lab work dominate Medicare spending by volume. While individually inexpensive, the sheer volume of these services means they account for a significant portion of total Medicare spending.

The Most Common Medical Procedures and What They Cost

Takeaway

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