# CPT 31575

> Medicare paid $115.20 for CPT 31575 in the office (non-facility) setting and $68.76 in a facility under the Q2 2018 Physician Fee Schedule, effective April 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 decreased 0.6%.

## What it is

A soft fiberoptic scope, usually passed through the nose and down behind the tongue, gives a live view of the voice box and vocal cords while the patient is awake, breathing, and talking. It is purely diagnostic, so no biopsy is taken and no injection or tissue removal is done. Because the scope bends and the patient is not asleep, the cords can be watched actually moving, which a mirror exam cannot show.

## Selected release

- Release: Q2 2018 (2018 B)
- Effective: April 1 – June 30, 2018
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $115.20
- Facility national allowed amount: $68.76
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 0.94
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 2.13
- Facility practice expense RVU: 0.84
- Malpractice RVU: 0.13
- 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 (Q2 2018)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service-payment/physicianfeesched/downloads/rvu18b.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU18_APR.csv, row 7,553
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/31575/2018/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/31575/2018/B
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:08:19+00:00