Neuropsychological Testing Cost by State

Testing cost where you live

Key point: Billed charges vary widely between states; the Medicare allowed amount barely moves.

What a good provider should make clear: The state figure read alongside the clinician count, which is the better guide to waiting time.

Common mistake: Assuming a state with few billing clinicians simply has cheaper care. It usually has less supply.

Questions to ask: How long is the wait for an evaluation here, and does that change if I pay cash?

First hour of neuropsychological testing evaluation, by state

Code 96132, office setting, calendar year 2024 Medicare claims.

Nationally the code was billed at $317.32 and allowed at $124.09, across 6,086 clinicians.

What the clinician count tells you

The right-hand column is supply. A state with few billing clinicians is usually a state with a long wait, not a bargain.

For a geographic search, the wait is often the real constraint. Ask about it before you ask about price.

Counts are Medicare-billing clinicians only. Practices that decline insurance are invisible here, and in some metros they are a large share of capacity.

Reading a state figure honestly

These are averages across a whole state. A large metro and a rural county sit inside the same number.

CMS hides any cell covering fewer than 11 patients, so smaller states may show as not published. We leave those blank rather than filling them.

Questions to ask a local practice

• What is the wait for an evaluation appointment?
• Do you bill insurance, or are you self-pay only?
• What is your rate for the first evaluation hour?
• How many total hours do you typically bill?

Common mistake: choosing a state figure over a local quote. The figure is context; the quote is the price.

Where these numbers come from, and what they are not

Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners — by Geography and Service, calendar year 2024 claims (file released 21 May 2026).

Method: we pull the published rows for each billing code, keep the average submitted charge and the average Medicare allowed amount, and print them unchanged. Nothing is modelled, averaged across codes, or adjusted.

• The submitted charge is what clinicians billed. It is list price. Almost nobody pays it.
• The allowed amount is what Medicare permitted, including the patient's coinsurance. It is a negotiated price.
• These are Medicare fee-for-service claims. The patients skew 65 and older.
• If you are paying cash or using commercial insurance, neither figure is your price. Use the gap between them as a bargaining range, not a quote.
• CMS hides any cell covering fewer than 11 patients, so some states are missing. We print "not published" there rather than guessing.

Common mistake: reading the allowed amount as "the real price" and expecting a clinic to match it. It is what one payer pays one set of clinicians.