# CPT 22551

> Medicare paid $1,782.10 for CPT 22551 in the office (non-facility) setting and $1,782.10 in a facility under the Q3 2020 Physician Fee Schedule, effective July 2020. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2020, when it decreased 0.4%.

## What it is

Neck surgery approached from the front of the throat, in which a worn or herniated disc is removed to take pressure off the spinal cord and nerve roots, bone spurs are cleared away, and the emptied disc space is packed with graft so the two vertebrae grow together into one solid unit. The decompression and the fusion are bundled into this single code rather than reported as separate steps. This one covers a single disc space anywhere below the second cervical vertebra; each further level treated in the same operation is reported in addition.

## Selected release

- Release: Q3 2020 (2020 C)
- Effective: July 1 – September 30, 2020
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $1782.10
- Facility national allowed amount: $1782.10
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 25.00
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 16.72
- Facility practice expense RVU: 16.72
- Malpractice RVU: 7.66
- Conversion factor: 36.0896
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q3 2020)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/rvu20c-updated-06192020.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU20_V0618.csv, row 6,575
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/22551/2020/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/22551/2020/C
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:09:46+00:00