CPT 99232
Hospital visit, subsequent day, moderate complexity
The daily charge from a doctor for seeing you on a day after admission, at moderate complexity. 99231 is the lower level, 99233 the higher. Each doctor following your care bills their own daily visit.
Billed to Medicare
$192
What providers submitted, on average, for this code in an office.
Medicare accepted
$74
What Medicare treated as payable. Not a commercial rate or a cash price.
The gap
2.6x
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 87,837 services.
Among the 4 doctor visits codes on this site with CMS figures, this gap ranks 2 of 4 (median 2.3x). The widest is Initial hospital care, high complexity at 3.4x.
Where this line goes wrong
One visit per doctor per day
A doctor bills one subsequent care code per day however many times they stop by. Two 99232 lines from the same doctor on the same date is a duplicate.
Doctors you never saw
Consultants who reviewed the chart without examining you may still bill, but the note should show a visit. If you do not recognise a name, ask for that doctor's note.
Discharge day is a different code
The day you left should be billed as discharge management (99238 or 99239), not as another subsequent visit, by the discharging doctor.
Check it, then ask
- 1
Line up every physician charge by date and doctor and check for duplicates.
- 2
Ask for the notes of any doctor you do not recognise.
- 3
Check the discharge day is billed once, as a discharge, by one doctor.
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Codes that travel with this one
People also ask
Why did I get bills from five different doctors?
Each specialist who saw you in hospital bills separately from the hospital and from each other. It is normal, and it is also where duplicate days and phantom visits hide.
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.