S8189 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 S8189, 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. 3 of the 7 states list more than one rate for S8189, 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. Of the 7 states, 1 publish S8189 per unit, and 6 schedules print no unit at all (a flat amount per service).
• Per hour. S8189 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 S8189, 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 S8189 run from $0.28 in North Carolina to $319.00 in Rhode Island. The two publish it in different units (no unit printed versus each), so part of that gap is the unit rather than the price. Half the states pay more than the median of $6.00 and half pay less. The usual reasons for a spread like this in physician & professional rates:

• Some states pay physician services as a percentage of the Medicare fee schedule; others keep a schedule of their own that may not have been rebased for years.
• Each state sets its own physician conversion factor or fee for every code, and many update them on a state budget cycle rather than on Medicare's calendar.
• Primary-care and pediatric add-ons, enhanced rates for certain specialties and targeted increases for access problems change individual codes without moving the rest of the schedule.

Timing matters too. None of the states changed its rate for S8189 in 2026, while 5 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.

Most Medicaid members are in managed-care plans, and plans don't publish their provider fee schedules. For S8189, the public signal is the rule each state sets for its plans, recorded on each rate above.

In 5 states, plans negotiate and the published rate is a benchmark or out-of-network default. The rule for the remaining 2 states is not classified yet.

• Plans negotiate; the published rate applies out of network (5 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.

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 Rhode Island managed care.

S8189 is a HCPCS Level II temporary national code in the physician & professional line, billed mostly by physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and other licensed practitioners. 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.

Physician-fee-schedule codes are billed per service: one unit is one occurrence unless the code itself is defined by time or quantity. Where a state publishes separate facility and non-facility amounts, the non-facility (office) amount is usually higher because the practice carries the overhead.

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.