# CPT 70553

> Medicare paid $370.64 for CPT 70553 in the office (non-facility) setting and $370.64 in a facility under the Q4 2020 Physician Fee Schedule, effective October 2020. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2020, when it decreased 1.6%.

## What it is

A magnetic-resonance study of the brain performed both before and after intravenous contrast, giving detailed images of brain tissue and highlighting areas that take up contrast. It uses magnetic fields rather than radiation.

## Selected release

- Release: Q4 2020 (2020 D)
- Effective: October 1 – December 31, 2020
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $370.64
- Facility national allowed amount: $370.64
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 2.29
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 7.85
- Facility practice expense RVU: 7.85
- Malpractice RVU: 0.13
- Conversion factor: 36.0896
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q4 2020)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/rvu20d-updated-11232020.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU20_OCT.csv, row 12,242
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/70553/2020/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/70553/2020/D
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:10:00+00:00