CPT 29125
Short arm splint, static
Applying a rigid splint from below the elbow to the hand, the usual ER treatment for a wrist sprain or a suspected fracture awaiting follow-up. The materials are often billed separately as supplies.
Billed to Medicare
$276
What providers submitted, on average, for this code in a hospital setting.
Medicare accepted
$36
What Medicare treated as payable. Not a commercial rate or a cash price.
The gap
7.6x
How many times the accepted amount the billed figure was.
National averages from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2024 data, retrieved 2026-09-14. Medicare fee-for-service, physician and practitioner claims only. The hospital's own charge for the same code is separate and is usually higher. Based on 27,902 services.
Among the 10 er procedures and injections codes on this site with CMS figures, this gap ranks 3 of 10 (median 4.7x). The widest is Simple wound repair, up to 2.5 cm at 9.9x.
Where this line goes wrong
Splint plus fracture care is double billing
If the ER physician also billed definitive fracture care (a 25xxx code), the splint application is included in it and should not be billed separately by the same provider.
Materials
Splint materials are often billed under a Q code or as supplies. Check they are billed once, not once by the hospital and again by the physician.
Check it, then ask
- 1
Check whether a fracture care code appears on the same physician bill as the splint.
- 2
Look for splint supplies billed on both the hospital and physician bills.
- 3
Check the ER visit level for the visit; a sprain with a splint is usually a low or mid level.
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Codes that travel with this one
People also ask
Why was I charged for a splint and for splint materials?
The application and the materials are separately billable in many settings. The thing to check is that the materials are not billed twice, by two different parties.
Sources
This page explains a billing code in general terms. It is not a coding, legal or medical opinion about your bill, and the code descriptions are mediloop's own plain-English summaries, not the official CPT descriptors, which are owned by the American Medical Association. Whether a charge was correct depends on the record of your visit and your payer's rules.