CPT code 87143: Culture typing, gas or liquid chromatography2026 Medicare lab fee · Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule
Chromatographic culture typing identifies an organism from a culture using gas-liquid or high-pressure liquid chromatography when that method is performed.
Medicare pays $12.52 for 87143 under the 2026 Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule: one national amount, the same in every state and setting.
Medicare lab fee · CLFS 2026 Q4
National CLFS amount
$12.52
In effect since Jan 1, 2026. The same amount in every state, payment locality and setting.
- Geographic adjustment
- None
- Office vs facility
- Same
- Since 2020
- Unchanged
- CMS updates
- Quarterly
Medicare pays the lesser of the lab’s charge and this amount. Patients usually owe no Part B deductible or coinsurance for covered clinical lab tests.
On this page 8 sections
What 87143 covers
This code reports identification of an organism using chromatography applied to a culture. The specified approaches are gas-liquid chromatography and high-pressure liquid chromatography. The method is the distinguishing feature of 87143; culture typing by immunofluorescence, another immunologic method, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, or DNA/RNA sequencing is represented by other codes. The service is organism identification rather than the culture-growth step.
Report 87143 when identification is performed with one of the specified chromatographic methods. Medicare pays the test only through the CLFS. The 2026 national CLFS amount is $12.52, unchanged since 2020; one amount applies in every state and locality, without geographic or office-versus-facility adjustment. The service is excluded from the physician fee schedule by statute.
This summary was written with AI assistance from CMS Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule data. Amounts on this page come directly from CMS files.
How Medicare pays 87143
Clinical lab tests aren’t priced like physician services. They’re paid from their own fee schedule, with its own rules. See the whole lab fee schedule.
One national amount
CMS sets a single Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule amount for 87143. There’s no geographic (GPCI) adjustment, so it pays the same in every state and payment locality.
No office or facility rate
Lab tests aren’t built from relative value units, so there’s no office and facility split: the place of service doesn’t change the CLFS amount.
Updated every quarter
CMS republishes the CLFS each quarter. New tests, often proprietary laboratory analyses (PLA codes), join during the year; existing amounts are updated each January.
Excluded from the physician fee schedule
The physician fee schedule lists 87143 with status X (excluded by statute), so the test itself is paid only from the CLFS.
87143 on the lab fee schedule since 2020
87143 · CLFS 2026 Q4 (current)
$12.52
Unchanged since Jan 1, 2020
27 quarterly CLFS releases on file, first CLFS 2020 Q1. A code missing from a quarter wasn’t on that release.
87143 compared with similar tests
- 87140Culture typingImmunofluorescent method$5.57
- Choose 87143 for gas-liquid or high-pressure liquid chromatography. Choose 87140 when culture typing uses immunofluorescence.
- 87147Culture typingImmunologic method$5.18
- 87147 is for immunologic culture typing; 87143 is for chromatographic identification of an organism from a culture.
- 87152Organism typingPulse-field gel method$7.74
- 87152 describes culture typing by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Use 87143 when the identification method is gas-liquid or high-pressure liquid chromatography.
- 87153Microbial sequencingIdentification of each isolate$115.36
- 87153 uses DNA or RNA sequencing for identification. 87143 uses chromatography on an organism from a culture.
87143 billing questions
When is 87143 the appropriate culture-typing code?
Use it when an organism from a culture is identified by gas-liquid or high-pressure liquid chromatography. The analytical method distinguishes this code.
How does 87143 differ from immunologic culture typing?
87143 identifies the organism by chromatography. Codes 87140 and 87147 describe culture typing by immunofluorescence and immunologic methods, respectively.
Does 87143 describe culture growth or organism typing?
It describes chromatographic identification of an organism from a culture, not the culture-growth step.
What does a report of 87143 represent?
It represents organism identification using gas-liquid or high-pressure liquid chromatography.
How does Medicare pay 87143?
Medicare pays the test through the CLFS at one national amount, with no locality or office-versus-facility adjustment. The code is excluded from the physician fee schedule.
Where this amount comes from
FeeBase reads lab amounts directly from the CMS Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule file for the quarter: one row per code, with its payment indicator and national amount. Contractor-priced tests are labeled, never given a made-up amount. Amounts are Medicare payment limits, not a patient’s bill or a commercial rate.
CMS CLFS 2026 Q4 · effective Oct 1, 2026 through the day before Jan 1, 2027
Show the CMS file line behind this amount
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