S0081 Medicaid reimbursement rate by state (2026)

• Order. States are listed from the highest published rate to the lowest. No single unit is shared by 8 or more states for S0081, so the order is by published amount and is not a like-for-like rank.
• Medicaid rate. The most the state's fee-for-service program pays for one unit, as published. 2 of the 5 states list more than one rate for S0081, by modifier, provider type or setting; the table shows the one that matches the provider level and setting used across states, without add-ons.
• Unit. None of the 5 schedules prints a separate unit for S0081, so each amount is a flat payment for one service as the code defines it.
• Per hour. S0081 is not billed in time units in these states, so no hourly figure is shown.
• Managed-care plans. The rule the state sets for its plans on this rate. What each rule means is explained below.
• % of Medicare. No Medicare physician fee schedule amount is on file for S0081, so there is no percentage.
• Source and date. Each Source link opens the state's own document; “since” is the date the rate took effect.

Published rates for S0081 run from $1.45 in Washington to $5.85 in Colorado, a 4.0x gap in the same unit. Half the states pay more than the median of $4.25 and half pay less. The usual reasons for a spread like this in physician & professional rates:

• Each state sets its own physician conversion factor or fee for every code, and many update them on a state budget cycle rather than on Medicare's calendar.
• Modifiers such as professional or technical component, bilateral, multiple procedure and assistant at surgery change the amount paid, and states apply them with their own percentages.
• Some states pay physician services as a percentage of the Medicare fee schedule; others keep a schedule of their own that may not have been rebased for years.

Timing matters too. 1 state set the current rate for S0081 in 2026 or later, while 4 states still pay a rate that took effect in 2022 or earlier. A state that has not updated its rate in years will drift down the ranking as others raise theirs.

Most Medicaid members are in managed-care plans, and plans don't publish their provider fee schedules. For S0081, the public signal is the rule each state sets for its plans, recorded on each rate above.

In 5 states, plans negotiate and the published rate is a benchmark or out-of-network default.

• Plans negotiate; the published rate applies out of network (5 states). In-network rates can be above or below the published rate. The published rate is the benchmark both sides know, and the fallback if no contract is signed.

Plan-negotiated rates are never estimated here. To see the rule and its citation for a particular state, open that state's managed-care page, for example Colorado managed care.

S0081 is a HCPCS Level II temporary national code in the physician & professional line, billed mostly by physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and other licensed practitioners. S codes were created for private payers and are widely used by Medicaid programs for services Medicare does not cover, such as home nursing and home infusion. Units range from 15 minutes to a day.

Practitioners who are not physicians are often paid a reduced percentage of the published amount, so check the schedule for the reduction that applies to your provider type. Where a state publishes separate facility and non-facility amounts, the non-facility (office) amount is usually higher because the practice carries the overhead.

Before billing, confirm the rate, unit and any modifier with the state's current schedule or the plan: the amounts here are as published, not a guarantee of payment.