CPT code 99466: Critical care transport, age 24 months or younger2026 Medicare rate & RVUs

Medicare pays $201.74 for 99466 nationally in a facility.

Medicare allowed amount for participating (non-QP) physicians, before deductible, coinsurance and claim adjustments. Not a patient’s bill or a hospital charge.

What 99466 covers

99466 covers face-to-face critical care provided by a physician or other qualified health care professional while a critically ill or injured child age 24 months or younger is being transported. A typical situation is an interfacility transfer for a child who needs ongoing intensive monitoring or treatment en route to a higher level of pediatric or neonatal care. The service is the clinician’s care during transport, not the ambulance trip itself.

Report 99466 for the first 30–74 minutes of clinical care during transport. For additional qualifying time, report 99467, the add-on code for each additional 30 minutes. Documentation should establish the child’s age and critical condition, the transport, the clinician’s face-to-face care, and the time spent providing it. The Medicare Physician Fee Schedule assigns work, practice-expense, and malpractice RVUs to this service; the applicable payment amount is displayed separately.

This summary was written with AI assistance from CMS physician fee schedule data and checked against the CMS billing rules shown here. Rates on this page come directly from CMS files.

Where 99466 pays more and less

The same RVUs, adjusted for each area’s costs. Open a locality for its calculation, history and nearby areas.

109 of 109 payment localities

99466 rates by state

Office rate range in each state. Select a state to see its payment localities.

How the 99466 rate is calculated

Each of 99466’s three RVUs is multiplied by a geographic index (GPCI) for the payment locality, added up, and multiplied by the conversion factor. Drag the indexes or enter a ZIP to see what moves the rate.

Payment rules and modifiers for 99466

99466 has no global surgery period, no multiple-procedure, bilateral or assistant-at-surgery adjustment, and no professional/technical split. What changes the payment is where the service happens: the place of service on the claim decides whether Medicare pays the office or the facility rate.

99466 compared with similar codes

How to choose

99467Critical care transportEach additional 30 minutes

99467 covers each additional 30 minutes after the initial 99466 interval; it is not used for the first transport interval.

99468Neonatal critical careInitial day

99468 reports initial critical care for a neonate, rather than the clinician’s face-to-face critical care during transport.

99471Pediatric critical careInitial day, age 29 days–24 months

99471 reports initial pediatric critical care outside the transport service; 99466 is specific to face-to-face care during transport for a child age 24 months or younger.

Codes related to 99466

Related codes aren’t interchangeable: bill the code that matches the service performed.

Where these rates come from

FeeBase calculates base physician payments from CMS work, practice-expense and malpractice RVUs, adjusted by each locality’s geographic indexes and the conversion factor. Services without a published rate are labeled, never given a made-up amount. Amounts are Medicare allowed amounts before claim adjustments: not a patient’s bill or a commercial rate.

CMS RVU26D · effective Oct 1, 2026 through the day before Jan 1, 2027

Open CMS sourceHow we calculate rates