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Free Triiodothyronine (T3) Blood Test

CPT 84481

Ordered to assess thyroid function when carrier-protein levels are likely to be abnormal or when total hormone results are hard to interpret.

No national payment amount

Status X is not separately payable under the PFS.

Did Medicare pay separately for CPT 84481 in Q2 2024? Copy link

Not at a published national rate. CPT 84481 carries status X (statutory exclusion) in the Q2 2024 release. The statutory definition of physician services does not include this item. Treat the blank amount as unpriced, not as $0.

Source: Physician relative value file (Q2 2024) · effective April 2024 · materially updated Aug 4, 2026 · compact facts

Can you bill it with another code? Copy link

Enter a second CPT or HCPCS code billed the same date of service to check the current NCCI procedure-to-procedure edit between it and 84481.

See every current NCCI pair for 84481 →

How often 84481 is billed Copy link

Across Original Medicare in CY2024, 84481 ranked #162 of the 7,879 CPT codes billed to Medicare that year, ranked by patients served or total allowed dollars.

Beneficiaries
1.0M
Office + facility patients combined
Services
1.5M
Times it was billed
Allowed
$25.3M
Total Medicare allowed dollars
Compare: ↑ #161 more popular · 36902 ↓ #163 less popular · 17004

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 Q2 2024 fee schedule the rates above come from.

Global period: what 84481's fee already covers Copy link

XXX Does not apply

The global surgery concept does not apply to this code.

Modifiers that report work outside 84481's global period
Modifier Reports
-25 A significant, separately identifiable E/M on the same day as the procedure, beyond its usual pre- and post-operative care.

A modifier reports what happened; it does not by itself make a service payable. Documentation has to support it.

Common questions Copy link

Why is there no payment amount for 84481?

Its status indicator is X (statutory exclusion). The statutory definition of physician services does not include this item. 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 84481 be denied or paid less?

Each item below comes from a CMS indicator on this page — not general billing advice.

  • Its status indicator is X (statutory exclusion) — The statutory definition of physician services does not include this item. See status indicators

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? Copy link

For patients
What does CPT code 84481 mean?

CPT code 84481: Free Triiodothyronine (T3) Blood Test. A common example is thyroid testing during pregnancy or in someone on hormone therapy, where the total hormone numbers can look alarming for reasons that have nothing to do with the thyroid gland. Measuring the free fraction cuts through that noise.

Computation & policy
History & related

Rate history by release Copy link

National non-facility amount for 84481 across quarterly releases.

Release Status Non-facility Facility
Q3 2026 Jul 1, 2026 – present X — —
Q2 2026 Apr 1, 2026 – Jun 30, 2026 X — —
Q1 2026 Jan 1, 2026 – Mar 31, 2026 X — —

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Source & method

Show sources

This is computed from CMS's Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Q2 2024 release (schedule pfs, effective April 2024). 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. Our methodology covers all of this in depth — sourcing, parsing, versioning, and how claims are cross-checked before they ship.

Description written from primary sources: CMS Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value Files. Not derived from AMA CPT descriptor text.

Physician relative value file (Q2 2024) · rvu24b-updated-03-18-2024.zip (PPRRVU24_APR.csv row 15,862)

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 Q2 2024 figures, even after a newer release lands.

CPT 84481 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule rate (Q2 2024). Localis. https://localishealth.com/cpt/84481/2024/B