Anesthesia for Skin Surgery on Limbs and Trunk
CPT 00400
Reported when an anesthesia professional covers skin or superficial soft-tissue surgery on an extremity, the anterior trunk, or the perineum.
No national payment amount
Anesthesia code: paid via base + time units × a separate anesthesia conversion factor, not the standard PFS RVU formula. Supply a locality (and time_minutes for a specific amount) to compute it.
~$183.43 for a 90-minute example case in Dallas, TX
Where this example comes from
(base_units + time_units) × anesthesia_cf × locality_adjuster time_units = time_minutes / 15. locality_adjuster = 0.787 × work_gpci + 0.147 × pe_gpci + 0.066 × mp_gpci.
Source
Anesthesia has no single national rate — payment is (base units + time units) × the locality's anesthesia conversion factor, so the amount above is an example computed with Dallas, TX rates, before sequestration. Enter your ZIP for your own locality's number.
How much does Medicare pay for CPT 00400?
CPT 00400 is an anesthesia code, so Medicare has no single national rate: payment is (base units + time units) × the locality's anesthesia conversion factor — for example, about $183.43 for a 90-minute case in Dallas, TX under the Q3 2026 release, before sequestration.
How often 00400 is billed
Across Original Medicare in CY2024, 00400 ranked #535 of the 7,879 CPT codes billed to Medicare that year, ranked by patients served or total allowed dollars. Patients who received it in 2024 were billed for it an average of 1.6 times that year — more than once per patient.
2024 Medicare fee-for-service only, national totals — Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and commercial volume are excluded, so real-world use runs higher. This is a calendar-year snapshot from the CMS Physician & Other Practitioners dataset, on a different cycle from the Q3 2026 fee schedule the rates above come from.
Common questions
Why is there no payment amount for 00400?
Its status indicator is J (anesthesia). Medicare prices this under the anesthesia formula — (base units + time units) × the locality anesthesia conversion factor — not the standard RVU formula. Ask for a locality to see that factor. The blank is deliberate: the amount is either unknown or paid under another provision, so reading it as $0 would be wrong.
Why would a Medicare claim for 00400 be denied or paid less?
Each item below comes from a CMS indicator on this page — not general billing advice.
- 265 codes can never be billed with 00400 on the same date of service — NCCI denies those pairs even with a modifier. See billing together
- 162 codes pair with 00400 only when modifier 59 (or XE, XS, XP, XU) documents a distinct service — billed together without one, a line of the pair denies. See billing together
Payer-specific coverage and documentation rules live outside these files, so a claim that clears every check here can still be denied on other grounds.
When does this rate change?
CMS publishes a fee schedule release every quarter (January, April, July, October), and each is versioned here. See what changed each release, or get an email when a new release moves rates.
Sources: CMS Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value Files.
Saw this code on your bill?
What is a 00400 visit in patient-friendly terms?
In plain terms: Anesthesia care for operations on skin and the tissue just beneath it on the arms, legs, front of the trunk, or perineum, when no more specific anesthesia code applies. Think surface-level work rather than surgery entering the chest, abdomen or a joint. Typical accompanying procedures are wide excision of a skin cancer, skin grafting for a burn or wound, or debridement of an infected wound. Think of someone having a sizeable skin cancer removed from the forearm, or a slow-healing leg wound cleaned out in the operating room. The surgery is on the skin surface, but it still needs someone managing sedation or general anesthesia and monitoring vital signs throughout; that clinician's time is what this code represents. You'll typically see CPT 00400 on a bill or explanation of benefits (EOB) when a clinician performs or bills for this service.
How this amount is computed
amount = (work RVU × work GPCI + PE RVU × PE GPCI + MP RVU × MP GPCI) × conversion factor. National amounts use GPCI = 1.000. To price an RVU figure of your own, use the RVU-to-dollars converter.
| Component | RVU |
|---|---|
| Work RVU | blank |
| Practice expense RVU (non-facility) | blank |
| Practice expense RVU (facility) | blank |
| Malpractice RVU | blank |
Every rate combines three parts: work (the clinician’s time, skill and effort), practice expense (office overhead — higher when the service is done in a doctor’s own office), and malpractice (the share of liability-insurance cost). A blank means CMS publishes no national number for that part. Read it as unknown, and never as zero.
Rate history by release
National non-facility amount for 00400 across quarterly releases.
| Release | Status | Non-facility | Facility |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q3 2026 Jun 30, 2026 – present | J | — | — |
| Q2 2026 Mar 10, 2026 – Jun 29, 2026 | J | — | — |
| Q1 2026 Dec 29, 2025 – Mar 9, 2026 | J | — | — |
| Q4 2025 Sep 11, 2025 – Dec 28, 2025 | J | — | — |
| Q3 2025 Jun 5, 2025 – Sep 10, 2025 | J | — | — |
| Q2 2025 Jun 5, 2025 – Jun 4, 2025 | J | — | — |
| Q1 2025 Dec 23, 2024 – Jun 4, 2025 | J | — | — |
Billing together (NCCI edits)
NCCI Q3 2026Based on CMS's National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI) — hover a code to see how it's used.
Never billable with 00400 on the same date of service
Showing 3 of 265+ — search above to check a specific code.
No match in this list.
Billable with 00400 only with modifier 59, XE, XS, XP, or XU
Showing 3 of 162 — search above to check a specific code.
No match in this list.
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Source & method
This is computed from CMS's Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Q3 2026 release (schedule pfs, effective July 2026). National amounts apply a GPCI of 1.000 and leave sequestration off. The status indicator decides payability, never the RVU values, so a blank RVU stays blank. Releases are immutable: a rate retrieved for a past quarter always reflects that release. Commercial and cash-pay figures anywhere on this page are arithmetic on the Medicare amount, using commonly cited reimbursement ranges. They're illustrative, and no nationwide claims database stands behind them.
Description written from primary sources: CMS Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value Files. Not derived from AMA CPT descriptor text.
Conversion factor $33.4009 read from the same file, row 11, column 26.
Use the (i) buttons next to each amount above for the exact row, columns, and math.
Cite this rate
This link keeps pointing at the Q3 2026 figures, even after a newer release lands.
CPT 00400 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule rate (Q3 2026). Localis. https://localishealth.com/cpt/00400/2026/C