# CPT 36905

> Medicare paid $2,553.48 for CPT 36905 in the office (non-facility) setting and $449.77 in a facility under the Q1 2021 Physician Fee Schedule, effective January 2021. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This is a 2.9% increase from the previous quarter.

## What it is

Rescue of a dialysis fistula or graft that has clotted off. Working through a sheath placed into the access, the operator breaks up and removes the clot, or dissolves it with a drug delivered into it, images the whole circuit, and then balloons open the underlying narrowing in the peripheral segment that caused the clot to form in the first place. This entry is the combination of clot removal plus balloon angioplasty in one sitting; neighbouring codes describe clot removal on its own or clot removal followed by a stent.

## Selected release

- Release: Q1 2021 (2021 A)
- Effective: January 1 – March 31, 2021
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $2553.48
- Facility national allowed amount: $449.77
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 9.00
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 63.02
- Facility practice expense RVU: 2.73
- Malpractice RVU: 1.16
- 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 (Q1 2021)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/rvu21a-updated-01052021.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU21_JAN.csv, row 8,992
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/36905/2021/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/36905/2021/A
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:10:16+00:00