# CPT 72040

> Medicare paid $39.61 for CPT 72040 in the office (non-facility) setting and $39.61 in a facility under the Q2 2024 Physician Fee Schedule, effective April 2024. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2024, when it decreased 1.8%.

## 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: Q2 2024 (2024 B)
- Effective: April 1 – June 30, 2024
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $39.61
- Facility national allowed amount: $39.61
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 0.22
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 0.95
- Facility practice expense RVU: 0.95
- Malpractice RVU: 0.02
- Conversion factor: 33.2875
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q2 2024)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/rvu24b-updated-03/18/2024.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU24_APR.csv, row 13,372
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72040/2024/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72040/2024/B
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:13:49+00:00