# CPT 29880

> Medicare paid $583.55 for CPT 29880 in the office (non-facility) setting and $583.55 in a facility under the Q3 2018 Physician Fee Schedule, effective July 2018. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2018, when it increased 0.6%.

## What it is

Keyhole knee surgery in which the surgeon trims or removes torn meniscal cartilage from both sides of the joint at the same sitting, along with any related smoothing of damaged tissue in those compartments. The meniscus is the C-shaped shock absorber sitting between the thighbone and shinbone, and there is one on the inner side and one on the outer side. What separates this from its close neighbour is scope: the sibling code covers work in a single compartment, while this one applies when both the medial and lateral meniscus are addressed. The whole procedure is done through small portals using a camera and slim instruments.

## Selected release

- Release: Q3 2018 (2018 C)
- Effective: July 1 – September 30, 2018
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $583.55
- Facility national allowed amount: $583.55
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 7.39
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 7.38
- Facility practice expense RVU: 7.38
- Malpractice RVU: 1.44
- Conversion factor: 35.9996
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q3 2018)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service-payment/physicianfeesched/downloads/rvu18c1.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU18_JUL.csv, row 7,325
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/29880/2018/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/29880/2018/C
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:08:27+00:00