# CPT 36556

> Medicare paid $228.90 for CPT 36556 in the office (non-facility) setting and $85.84 in a facility under the Q3 2021 Physician Fee Schedule, effective July 2021. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2021, when it increased 4.3%.

## What it is

Placement of a central venous catheter through the skin into a large vein, most often the internal jugular in the neck, the subclavian under the collarbone, or the femoral vein in the groin, with the catheter tip advanced to sit in a large vein close to the heart. Non-tunneled means the line enters at the puncture site and goes straight in, with no length of catheter buried under the skin and no implanted reservoir, which makes it fast to place and suited to short-term use. This entry applies to patients aged five and older.

## Selected release

- Release: Q3 2021 (2021 C)
- Effective: July 1 – September 30, 2021
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $228.90
- Facility national allowed amount: $85.84
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 1.75
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 4.60
- Facility practice expense RVU: 0.50
- Malpractice RVU: 0.21
- Conversion factor: 34.8931
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q3 2021)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/rvu21c-updated-6302021.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU21_JUL.csv, row 9,003
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/36556/2021/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/36556/2021/C
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:10:45+00:00