# CPT 72040

> Medicare paid $38.62 for CPT 72040 in the office (non-facility) setting and $38.62 in a facility under the Q3 2020 Physician Fee Schedule, effective July 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 increased 4.0%.

## What it is

Plain X-rays of the seven vertebrae in the neck, taken as a short study of two or three pictures - typically a front view and a side view. It is the basic look at neck alignment, disc space narrowing, and arthritic wear. Longer studies of the same region exist for when more angles are needed, including oblique views and bending films that show how the neck moves.

## Selected release

- Release: Q3 2020 (2020 C)
- Effective: July 1 – September 30, 2020
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $38.62
- Facility national allowed amount: $38.62
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 0.22
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 0.83
- Facility practice expense RVU: 0.83
- Malpractice RVU: 0.02
- 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 (Q3 2020)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/rvu20c-updated-06192020.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU20_V0618.csv, row 12,296
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72040/2020/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72040/2020/C
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:09:46+00:00