# CPT 20600

> Medicare paid $48.81 for CPT 20600 in the office (non-facility) setting and $36.61 in a facility under the Q4 2017 Physician Fee Schedule, effective October 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 1.0%.

## What it is

Aspiration of fluid from, or injection into, a small joint or bursa such as a finger or toe, without imaging guidance. It relieves swelling, obtains fluid for testing, or delivers medication.

## Selected release

- Release: Q4 2017 (2017 D)
- Effective: October 1 – December 31, 2017
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $48.81
- Facility national allowed amount: $36.61
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 0.66
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 0.63
- Facility practice expense RVU: 0.29
- Malpractice RVU: 0.07
- 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 (Q4 2017)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service-payment/physicianfeesched/downloads/rvu17d.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU17_OCT.csv, row 5,606
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/20600/2017/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/20600/2017/D
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:07:59+00:00