# CPT 36903

> Medicare paid $5,725.38 for CPT 36903 in the office (non-facility) setting and $332.64 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 1.1%.

## What it is

Placement of a stent inside a narrowed dialysis fistula or graft to hold the channel open, done through a stick into the access. The circuit is imaged first, a balloon is generally used to prepare the narrowing, and then a metal or covered stent is deployed across it; the imaging and any balloon work in that same segment are part of the one procedure. This entry concerns the peripheral segment, meaning the access itself and its outflow veins up to roughly the level of the armpit, and it is chosen over the balloon-only code when a stent ends up being placed. It is used for narrowing without clot; separate codes apply when the access has clotted off.

## Selected release

- Release: Q3 2018 (2018 C)
- Effective: July 1 – September 30, 2018
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $5725.38
- Facility national allowed amount: $332.64
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 6.39
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 151.70
- Facility practice expense RVU: 1.90
- Malpractice RVU: 0.95
- 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 8,492
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/36903/2018/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/36903/2018/C
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:08:27+00:00