# CPT 37229

> Medicare paid $12,450.79 for CPT 37229 in the office (non-facility) setting and $740.96 in a facility under the Q3 2019 Physician Fee Schedule, effective July 2019. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2019, when it increased 13.4%.

## What it is

Catheter-based treatment to reopen a blocked artery below the knee - one of the tibial or peroneal arteries that carry blood down to the ankle and foot. In this version the surgeon shaves, drills, or lasers the hardened plaque out of the artery wall (atherectomy) rather than only squeezing it aside with a balloon; any ballooning done in that same artery is part of the same work. It covers the first artery treated in one leg, and it is the atherectomy member of a family that also includes balloon-only, stent, and stent-plus-atherectomy versions of the same below-knee territory.

## Selected release

- Release: Q3 2019 (2019 C)
- Effective: July 1 – September 30, 2019
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $12450.79
- Facility national allowed amount: $740.96
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 13.80
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 328.78
- Facility practice expense RVU: 3.86
- Malpractice RVU: 2.90
- Conversion factor: 36.0391
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q3 2019)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service-payment/physicianfeesched/downloads/rvu19c.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU19_JUL.csv, row 8,791
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/37229/2019/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/37229/2019/C
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:09:02+00:00