CPT 71250 Medicare rate and RVUs

Rates by locality Copy link

The national baseline uses GPCI 1.000. These locality-adjusted allowed amounts use each payment locality's own GPCIs. Select a state to see its localities.

Look up your exact locality →

Q4 2026 amounts, computed with each locality's own GPCIs, before the ~2% sequestration cut. A state with more than one payment locality shows a range—its tile is colored by the mean across those localities, which is a shading choice, not an amount anyone is paid.

How this amount is computed Copy link

CPT 71250 has a work RVU of 1.05, a non-facility practice expense RVU of 2.85, a facility practice expense RVU of 2.85 and a malpractice RVU of 0.07—for total non-facility RVUs of 3.97 and total facility RVUs of 3.97 in the Q4 2026 release.

The formula is: (work RVU × work GPCI + PE RVU × PE GPCI + MP RVU × MP GPCI) × conversion factor. National amounts use GPCI = 1.000. To price an RVU figure of your own, use the RVU-to-dollars converter.

Every rate combines three parts: work (the clinician’s time, skill and effort), practice expense (office overhead—higher when the service is done in a doctor’s own office), and malpractice (the share of liability-insurance cost). A blank means CMS publishes no national number for that part. Read it as unknown, never as zero.

Global period: what 71250's fee already covers Copy link

The global surgery concept does not apply to this code.

Billing 71250 whole or split (-26 and -TC) Copy link

71250 can be billed as one whole service, or split between the physician's interpretation and report (modifier 26) and the equipment, supplies and clinical staff (modifier TC). Which applies depends on who owns the equipment and who reads the study.

The two components add up to the whole-service amount in the office setting, so nothing is lost by splitting the bill—only the party billing each half changes.

A dash means CMS publishes no amount for that line in this release. Read it as unknown, never as zero. National amounts at GPCI 1.000, before sequestration and before any locality adjustment.

Billing policy Copy link

These billing-policy indicators explain how 71250 is treated. They apply whether the code is nationally priced or carrier-priced: a restriction like "bilateral not allowed" still matters on a carrier-priced code. See modifier amounts below for the dollar figures these support.

Modifier amounts: -26/TC, -50, -80/81/82, -AS, -62, -66 Copy link

National Office (non-facility) amounts for the modifiers this code's indicators support. These are single-line modifiers only. -51 (multiple-procedure reduction) depends on the other codes on the same claim, so it's a claim-level number rather than a per-code one. Use the calculator for a locality-adjusted, sequestration-aware amount.

Not payable with 71250: -50 (bilateral procedure); -62 (co-surgeons, each); -66 (team surgery).

Each amount applies a standard MPFS percentage (assistant surgeon 16%, non-physician assistant at surgery 13.6%, co-surgeon 62.5%, bilateral 150%) to the national Office (non-facility) amount above. CMS doesn't publish these as a column; Localis derives them, so check them against the current Medicare Claims Processing Manual before relying on them for payment. A row marked If documented carries the ordinary percentage, but this code's CMS indicator allows it only when documentation of medical necessity is submitted. Without that documentation, an unpaid claim is not an underpayment.

CMS RVU26D · October 1 – December 31, 2026 · revision 2 See file rows

Check a pair of codes Copy link

Enter a second CPT or HCPCS code billed on the same date of service. We'll check the current NCCI procedure-to-procedure edit for the pair.

See every current NCCI pair for 71250 →

Based on CMS's National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI). A few examples appear here; use the complete edit page to check a specific pair.

Modifier 59 and the X modifiers are not a universal bypass—CMS expects the most specific applicable modifier, and which one that is depends on the pair and the documented circumstances.

Check a paired code or view all 35 NCCI pairs →

Medically Unlikely Edit (MUE) limit: 2 units per patient per date of service.

Payment review for 71250 Copy link

Three published payment rules can change what 71250 allows on a claim: the professional/technical split, the diagnostic-imaging reduction and documentation-restricted assistant-at-surgery payment. Each is a legitimate reason for a paid amount to differ from the fee-schedule amount on this page.

Sources: CMS Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value Files; CMS Medicare Claims Processing Manual (Pub. 100-04); CMS Transmittal R694OTN: MPPR on the Technical Component of Certain Diagnostic Imaging Procedures; 42 USC 1395w-4(i)(2) (SSA §1848(i)(2))—Assistants-at-surgery.

Rate history by release Copy link

National Office (non-facility) amount for 71250 across quarterly releases. -37.7% decrease since Q1 2013 · peak $212.98 in Q1 2013

Why 71250's rate changed Copy link

National baseline (GPCI 1.000) · Office (non-facility) · Before sequestration

71250's national amount fell $80.38 (−37.7%), from $212.98 in Q1 2013 to $132.60 in Q4 2026. Changes to the conversion factor, which CMS sets for every code, took $3.89 off. CMS revaluing 71250 itself took $76.49 off: −$77.82 from practice-expense RVUs, +$1.00 from work RVUs and +$0.33 from malpractice RVUs. The most recent change came in Q1 2026: +$1.60 (+1.2%), with +$4.27 from the conversion factor, −$2.00 from practice-expense RVUs, −$1.00 from work RVUs and +$0.33 from malpractice RVUs.

CMS doesn't publish this split; we derive it from each release's RVUs and conversion factor. We apply the new conversion factor to the earlier RVUs first, then price each RVU change at the new conversion factor. Another order would move a few cents between columns, but every total stays the same.

Contracted rate: % of Medicare Copy link

Commercial contracts are often written as a percentage of Medicare ("115% of Medicare"). Enter yours to see what it means for 71250. A contract benchmarked to the fee schedule applies it to your locality's allowed amount, not the $132.60 national baseline; the calculator finds that amount from your service ZIP.

See how to find your contract's actual percentage.

How often 71250 is billed Copy link

Across Original Medicare in CY2024, 71250 ranked #95 of the 7,879 CPT codes billed to Medicare that year, by patients served or total allowed dollars.

2024 Medicare fee-for-service national totals. They exclude Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and commercial volume, so real-world use runs higher. This is a calendar-year snapshot from the CMS Physician & Other Practitioners dataset, on a different cycle from the Q4 2026 fee schedule above.

How 71250 compares with other codes Copy link

Against every code with a national PFS amount in Q4 2026 · National baseline · Before sequestration

50.3% Highest vs. lowest locality

71250's Office amount is 50.3% higher in its highest-paid payment locality than in its lowest. That spread is wider than 72% of the 7,716 codes compared; the median spread is 43.6%. How much a code's amount varies by locality depends on its mix of work, practice-expense and malpractice RVUs, since each has its own GPCI.

−37.7% Since Q1 2013

71250's Office amount fell 37.7% from Q1 2013 to Q4 2026. Over the same period, the median code's amount fell 6.6%. That's lower than the change for 97% of the 6,418 codes priced in both releases.

These comparisons cover every code with a national Physician Fee Schedule amount: status A, R or T, with no blank RVUs. The locality comparison leaves out codes with an OPPS cap, because the cap, not the GPCIs, can set their amount in some localities.

Related codes Copy link

Codes near 71250 in the radiology and imaging group, with their national Q4 2026 amounts at GPCI 1.000. A dash means the release publishes no payable PFS amount in that setting.

Localis groups these codes for payment research. The grouping isn't the AMA's code families.