S5553 Medicaid reimbursement rate by state (2026)

• Order. States are listed from the highest published rate to the lowest. No single unit is shared by 8 or more states for S5553, so the order is by published amount and is not a like-for-like rank.
• Medicaid rate. The most the state's fee-for-service program pays for one unit, as published. 2 of the 5 states list more than one rate for S5553, by modifier, provider type or setting; the table shows the one that matches the provider level and setting used across states, without add-ons.
• Unit. None of the 5 schedules prints a separate unit for S5553, so each amount is a flat payment for one service as the code defines it.
• Per hour. S5553 is not billed in time units in these states, so no hourly figure is shown.
• Managed-care plans. The rule the state sets for its plans on this rate. What each rule means is explained below.
• % of Medicare. No Medicare physician fee schedule amount is on file for S5553, so there is no percentage.
• Source and date. Each Source link opens the state's own document; “since” is the date the rate took effect.

Published rates for S5553 run from $0.28 in Minnesota to $5.04 in California, a 18.0x gap in the same unit. Half the states pay more than the median of $0.33 and half pay less. The usual reasons for a spread like this in pharmacy rates:

• Drugs given in a practice or clinic are commonly priced from a benchmark such as average sales price or wholesale acquisition cost, which moves every quarter.
• For children, many vaccines are supplied through the federal Vaccines for Children program, so the Medicaid payment can be for administration only.
• States differ in whether they pay a fixed fee, a percentage of a benchmark or invoice cost.

Timing matters too. 1 state set the current rate for S5553 in 2026 or later, while 2 states still pay a rate that took effect in 2022 or earlier. A state that has not updated its rate in years will drift down the ranking as others raise theirs.

What a plan pays for S5553 is negotiated privately, but the state decides how much room there is to negotiate. Here is how the rules break down across the 5 states.

In 1 state, the published rate binds plans: a floor, a pass-through or a state-set rate. In 4 states, plans negotiate and the published rate is a benchmark or out-of-network default.

• Plans negotiate; the published rate applies out of network (4 states). In-network rates can be above or below the published rate. The published rate is the benchmark both sides know, and the fallback if no contract is signed.
• Plans must pay at least the published rate (1 state). The published rate is your floor. Negotiate up from it, and if a plan pays less, the contract provision is the basis for a payment dispute.

Plan-negotiated rates are never estimated here. To see the rule and its citation for a particular state, open that state's managed-care page, for example California managed care.

S5553 is a HCPCS Level II temporary national code in the pharmacy line, billed mostly by practices and clinics that administer vaccines and drugs. S codes were created for private payers and are widely used by Medicaid programs for services Medicare does not cover, such as home nursing and home infusion. Units range from 15 minutes to a day.

Drug codes are billed in units of the dose stated in the code, so a larger dose bills more units. Many states require the National Drug Code (NDC) on the claim alongside the billing code.

Before billing, confirm the rate, unit and any modifier with the state's current schedule or the plan: the amounts here are as published, not a guarantee of payment.