Telephone Visit by Clinician, Medium
CPT 99442
Reported when a phone consultation with the clinician runs into the second ten-minute band.
No national payment amount
Status N is not separately payable under the PFS.
Did Medicare pay separately for CPT 99442 in Q4 2017?
Not at a published national rate. CPT 99442 carries status N (non-covered) in the Q4 2017 release. Medicare covers no part of this service. Treat the blank amount as unpriced, not as $0.
Source: Physician relative value file (Q4 2017) · effective October 2017 · materially updated Aug 4, 2026 · compact facts
How often 99442 is billed
Across Original Medicare in CY2024, 99442 ranked #182 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 1.5 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 Q4 2017 fee schedule the rates above come from.
Common questions
Why is there no payment amount for 99442?
Its status indicator is N (non-covered). Medicare covers no part of this service. 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 99442 be denied or paid less?
Each item below comes from a CMS indicator on this page — not general billing advice.
- Its status indicator is N (non-covered) — Medicare covers no part of this service. 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. The 99442 rate last moved in Q1 2024 (-0.3% non-facility) — see its rate history or 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 99442 visit in patient-friendly terms?
In plain terms: The middle time band of the audio-only telephone consultation family: a voice call between an established patient and their physician or other qualified clinician, with medical discussion running roughly eleven to twenty minutes. The service is the same as the shorter and longer versions — history taking, assessment, and a plan delivered over the phone — and only the amount of discussion time separates them. Think of a call about worsening back pain where the doctor works through what makes it better or worse, rules out warning signs, changes the pain medication, and explains what would justify coming in. You'll typically see CPT 99442 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 99442 across quarterly releases. Up 18.9% since Q2 2020 · high $92.82 in Q1 2021
| Release | Status | Non-facility | Facility |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q4 2024 Aug 9, 2024 – present | A | $90.54 (0.0%) | $64.91 (0.0%) |
| Q3 2024 May 3, 2024 – Aug 8, 2024 | A | $90.54 (0.0%) | $64.91 (0.0%) |
| Q2 2024 Mar 15, 2024 – May 2, 2024 | A | $90.54 (0.0%) | $64.91 (0.0%) |
| Q1 2024 Mar 11, 2023 – Mar 14, 2024 | A | $90.54 (-0.3%) | $64.91 (-1.8%) |
| Q4 2023 Aug 1, 2023 – Mar 10, 2023 | A | $90.82 (0.0%) | $66.08 (0.0%) |
| Q3 2023 May 10, 2023 – Jul 31, 2023 | A | $90.82 (0.0%) | $66.08 (0.0%) |
| Q2 2023 Feb 3, 2023 – May 9, 2023 | A | $90.82 (0.0%) | $66.08 (0.0%) |
| Q1 2023 Jan 30, 2023 – Feb 2, 2023 | A | $90.82 (-1.0%) | $66.08 (-1.6%) |
| Q4 2022 Jul 29, 2022 – Jan 29, 2023 | A | $91.71 (0.0%) | $67.14 (0.0%) |
| Q3 2022 Jun 17, 2022 – Jul 28, 2022 | A | $91.71 (0.0%) | $67.14 (0.0%) |
| Q2 2022 Feb 14, 2022 – Jun 16, 2022 | A | $91.71 (0.0%) | $67.14 (0.0%) |
| Q1 2022 Dec 15, 2021 – Feb 13, 2022 | A | $91.71 (-1.2%) | $67.14 (-1.8%) |
| Q4 2021 Aug 3, 2021 – Dec 14, 2021 | A | $92.82 (0.0%) | $68.39 (0.0%) |
| Q3 2021 Jun 10, 2021 – Aug 2, 2021 | A | $92.82 (0.0%) | $68.39 (0.0%) |
| Q2 2021 Feb 26, 2021 – Jun 9, 2021 | A | $92.82 (0.0%) | $68.39 (0.0%) |
| Q1 2021 Dec 29, 2020 – Feb 25, 2021 | A | $92.82 (+21.9%) | $68.39 (+30.7%) |
| Q4 2020 Oct 21, 2020 – Dec 28, 2020 | A | $76.15 (0.0%) | $52.33 (0.0%) |
| Q3 2020 Jun 18, 2020 – Oct 20, 2020 | A | $76.15 (0.0%) | $52.33 (0.0%) |
| Q2 2020 Apr 30, 2020 – Jun 17, 2020 | A | $76.15 | $52.33 |
| Q1 2020 Nov 8, 2019 – Apr 29, 2020 | N | — | — |
| Q4 2019 Aug 2, 2019 – Nov 7, 2019 | N | — | — |
| Q3 2019 May 3, 2019 – Aug 1, 2019 | N | — | — |
| Q2 2019 Mar 1, 2019 – May 2, 2019 | N | — | — |
| Q1 2019 Dec 13, 2018 – Feb 28, 2019 | N | — | — |
| Q4 2018 Aug 3, 2018 – Dec 12, 2018 | N | — | — |
| Q3 2018 Apr 30, 2018 – Aug 2, 2018 | N | — | — |
| Q2 2018 Feb 12, 2018 – Apr 29, 2018 | N | — | — |
| Q1 2018 Feb 9, 2018 – Feb 11, 2018 | N | — | — |
| Q4 2017 Aug 18, 2017 – Feb 8, 2018 | N | — | — |
| Q3 2017 May 3, 2017 – Aug 17, 2017 | N | — | — |
| Q2 2017 Feb 9, 2017 – May 2, 2017 | N | — | — |
| Q1 2017 Nov 14, 2016 – Feb 8, 2017 | N | — | — |
| Q4 2016 Aug 5, 2016 – Nov 13, 2016 | N | — | — |
| Q3 2016 May 17, 2016 – Aug 4, 2016 | N | — | — |
| Q2 2016 Feb 2, 2016 – May 16, 2016 | N | — | — |
| Q1 2016 Jan 21, 2016 – Feb 1, 2016 | N | — | — |
| Q4 2015 Oct 2, 2015 – Jan 20, 2016 | N | — | — |
| Q3 2015 May 15, 2015 – Oct 1, 2015 | N | — | — |
| Q2 2015 Feb 13, 2015 – May 14, 2015 | N | — | — |
| Q1 2015 Dec 23, 2014 – Feb 12, 2015 | N | — | — |
| Q4 2014 Aug 19, 2014 – Dec 22, 2014 | N | — | — |
| Q3 2014 May 15, 2014 – Aug 18, 2014 | N | — | — |
| Q2 2014 Mar 24, 2014 – May 14, 2014 | N | — | — |
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Source & method
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This is computed from CMS's Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Q4 2017 release (schedule pfs, effective October 2017). 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.
Conversion factor $35.8887 read from the same file, row 11, column 25.
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 Q4 2017 figures, even after a newer release lands.
CPT 99442 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule rate (Q4 2017). Localis. https://localishealth.com/cpt/99442/2017/D