# CPT 71260

> Medicare paid $199.30 for CPT 71260 in the office (non-facility) setting and $199.30 in a facility under the Q1 2019 Physician Fee Schedule, effective January 2019. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This is a 0.4% decrease from the previous quarter.

## What it is

The same chest CT as the plain study, but taken after iodinated contrast dye is injected into a vein. The dye lights up blood vessels, the heart, and lymph nodes, and makes the edges of a mass or an abscess much easier to define against the tissue around it. It is the version usually chosen when the question involves cancer staging, infection, or anything in the space between the lungs, and it is distinct from the timed arterial study used to hunt for clots.

## Selected release

- Release: Q1 2019 (2019 A)
- Effective: January 1 – March 31, 2019
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $199.30
- Facility national allowed amount: $199.30
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 1.24
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 4.21
- Facility practice expense RVU: 4.21
- Malpractice RVU: 0.08
- 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 (Q1 2019)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service-payment/physicianfeesched/downloads/rvu19a.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU19_V1213.csv, row 11,946
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/71260/2019/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/71260/2019/A
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:08:45+00:00