# CPT 13121

> Medicare paid $435.33 for CPT 13121 in the office (non-facility) setting and $277.42 in a facility under the Q3 2017 Physician Fee Schedule, effective July 2017. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2017, when it increased 0.5%.

## What it is

Advanced closure of a wound on the scalp, an arm, or a leg using techniques past routine layered suturing, such as freeing up the surrounding skin so it can slide, trimming the wound edges back to clean tissue, or placing sutures that take the pull off the closure. It is the mid-length member of a graded set, sitting above the short-wound code, with additional length reported separately. The body regions covered here are grouped differently from the trunk and from the face.

## Selected release

- Release: Q3 2017 (2017 C)
- Effective: July 1 – September 30, 2017
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $435.33
- Facility national allowed amount: $277.42
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 4.00
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 7.53
- Facility practice expense RVU: 3.13
- Malpractice RVU: 0.60
- Conversion factor: 35.8887
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q3 2017)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service-payment/physicianfeesched/downloads/rvu17c.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU17_JULY_V0503.csv, row 5,290
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/13121/2017/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/13121/2017/C
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:07:49+00:00