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POS 50: Federally Qualified Health Center

POS 50 is the CMS place of service code for Federally Qualified Health Center, defined as a facility located in a medically underserved area that provides Medicare beneficiaries preventive primary medical care under the general direction of a physician. On Medicare professional claims paid under the physician fee schedule, POS 50 takes the non-facility rate (Pub. 100-04, chapter 26).

Compiled from CMS files by the QuickIntell RCM Editorial Team · Data effective · Method: reference methodology · Report a data correction

Data currency: CMS Place of Service code set: CMS page last modified February 17, 2026; code table updated May 2, 2024 (effective August 1, 2024). Next CMS release: no fixed schedule (CMS posts new place of service codes on its code set page, usually months before Medicare's effective date).

Place of service code
50
Medicare fee schedule rate
Non-facility rate
Pub. 100-04, chapter 26, section 10.5
In effect since
Before 2003
Reported on
Professional claims
CMS-1500 item 24B or the 837P
Setting group
Offices, clinics and urgent care

CMS definition of POS 50

A facility located in a medically underserved area that provides Medicare beneficiaries preventive primary medical care under the general direction of a physician.

CMS Place of Service code set, Federally Qualified Health Center

POS 50 is one of the long-standing codes that CMS lists without a date, meaning it was in effect on or before January 1, 2003 (Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Pub. 100-04, chapter 26, section 10.5).

Facility or non-facility rate for POS 50

Medicare pays a physician fee schedule service billed with this code at the non-facility rate. The non-facility rate carries the larger practice-expense component, because the practitioner bears the cost of the space, the clinical staff, the equipment and the supplies used for the service.

Chapter 12, section 20.4.2 of the Medicare Claims Processing Manual lists this setting as “Federally Qualified Health Center” on its non-facility list. The rule behind the list is that the code reflects where the beneficiary received the face-to-face service, except that services to a registered hospital inpatient or outpatient are paid at the facility rate wherever the encounter took place.

Medicare's physician fee schedule designation for POS 50 is the non-facility rate (chapter 26, section 10.5). A federally qualified health center bills its own Medicare visits on an institutional claim under the FQHC prospective payment system, and drugs given there are not separately payable, so the JW and JZ drug wastage modifiers do not apply to them (chapter 17, section 40).

Not every service has two rates: when the facility and non-facility amounts are the same, as they are for the professional component of a diagnostic test, the place of service does not change the payment. Outpatient therapy and comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation facility services are always paid at the non-facility rate.

Denials when POS 50 does not fit the claim

A place of service that conflicts with the procedure, the patient's registration or the payer's policy comes back with one of three codes. Claim adjustment reason code 5 means the procedure code or bill type is inconsistent with the place of service; reason code 58 means the payer considers the setting inappropriate or invalid for the service; and remark code M77 marks a missing, incomplete, invalid or inappropriate place of service. Medicare returns a line whose POS is missing, unassigned or incompatible with a site-specific procedure as unprocessable with CARC 16 and M77, so the fix is a corrected claim rather than an appeal (Pub. 100-04, chapter 26, section 10.6).

Where QuickIntell fits with place of service

QuickRCM covers eligibility, claim readiness, denials, posting and A/R with configurable automation and human review, the stage where the place of service code is checked against the setting, the registration and the modifier before the claim goes out, and where CARC 5, CARC 58 and M77 denials are worked.

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Frequently asked questions

What is place of service code 50?

POS 50, Federally Qualified Health Center, is defined by CMS as follows: A facility located in a medically underserved area that provides Medicare beneficiaries preventive primary medical care under the general direction of a physician. POS 50 is one of the long-standing codes that CMS lists without a date, meaning it was in effect on or before January 1, 2003 (Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Pub. 100-04, chapter 26, section 10.5). It sits in the offices, clinics and urgent care group with POS 11, POS 17, POS 20, POS 49, POS 71 and POS 72.

Does POS 50 pay the facility or the non-facility rate?

The non-facility rate. Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Pub. 100-04, chapter 26, section 10.5 designates POS 50 NF, so a physician fee schedule service billed with it is paid at the non-facility rate, the higher practice-expense amount paid when the practitioner carries the cost of the space, staff, equipment and supplies. Chapter 12, section 20.4.2 lists it as "Federally Qualified Health Center" on the non-facility list. Services whose two rates are equal, such as the professional component of a diagnostic test, pay the same either way (chapter 12, section 20.4.2).

When should a claim use POS 50?

Medicare's physician fee schedule designation for POS 50 is the non-facility rate (chapter 26, section 10.5). A federally qualified health center bills its own Medicare visits on an institutional claim under the FQHC prospective payment system, and drugs given there are not separately payable, so the JW and JZ drug wastage modifiers do not apply to them (chapter 17, section 40).

Sources

Every figure on this page is taken from the CMS publications below, as released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Projection built 2026-10-10. Verify against the primary file before billing or contracting decisions. The reference methodology explains how each figure is computed from these files.

Disclaimer

The definition is reproduced from the CMS Place of Service code set; the Medicare rate and instructions are from Pub. 100-04, chapters 12 and 26. Medicaid and commercial plans publish their own place of service rules. Not legal, clinical or billing advice.

Found a figure that does not match the CMS file? Report a data correction with the CMS file and the value you expected; the request reaches the editorial team through the contact form.