Bacterial Culture, Other Source
CPT 87070
Ordered when an infection is suspected at a specific site and the treating clinician needs to know which organism is responsible.
No national payment amount
Status X is not separately payable under the PFS.
Does Medicare pay separately for CPT 87070 in 2026?
Not at a published national rate. CPT 87070 carries status X (statutory exclusion) in the Q3 2026 release. The statutory definition of physician services does not include this item. Treat the blank amount as unpriced, not as $0.
How often 87070 is billed
Across Original Medicare in CY2024, 87070 ranked #341 of the 7,879 CPT codes billed to Medicare that year, ranked by patients served or total allowed dollars.
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 87070?
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 87070 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
- 16 codes can never be billed with 87070 on the same date of service — NCCI denies those pairs even with a modifier. See billing together
- 12 codes pair with 87070 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 87070 visit in patient-friendly terms?
In plain terms: An aerobic bacterial culture from a specimen other than urine, blood, or stool - for example a wound swab, abscess drainage, throat, sputum, or fluid from a body cavity. The lab grows whatever bacteria are present and makes a preliminary identification of the organisms that come up. Further definitive identification or drug-sensitivity testing, if the doctor needs it, is done as separate additional work. Think of a surgical wound that has turned red and started draining, and the nurse swabs it before antibiotics are chosen. The lab tries to grow whatever is living in that sample so treatment can be aimed at the actual organism rather than guessed at. You'll typically see CPT 87070 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 87070 across quarterly releases.
| Release | Status | Non-facility | Facility |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q3 2026 Jun 30, 2026 – present | X | — | — |
| Q2 2026 Mar 10, 2026 – Jun 29, 2026 | X | — | — |
| Q1 2026 Dec 29, 2025 – Mar 9, 2026 | X | — | — |
| Q4 2025 Sep 11, 2025 – Dec 28, 2025 | X | — | — |
| Q3 2025 Jun 5, 2025 – Sep 10, 2025 | X | — | — |
| Q2 2025 Jun 5, 2025 – Jun 4, 2025 | X | — | — |
| Q1 2025 Dec 23, 2024 – Jun 4, 2025 | X | — | — |
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 87070 on the same date of service
Showing 3 of 16 — search above to check a specific code.
No match in this list.
Billable with 87070 only with modifier 59, XE, XS, XP, or XU
Showing 3 of 12 — 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 87070 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule rate (Q3 2026). Localis. https://localishealth.com/cpt/87070/2026/C