# CPT 72050

> Medicare paid $55.02 for CPT 72050 in the office (non-facility) setting and $55.02 in a facility under the Q4 2022 Physician Fee Schedule, effective October 2022. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2022, when it increased 2.4%.

## What it is

A fuller plain-film study of the neck vertebrae than the short two- or three-picture version, adding angled views that open up the small openings where nerve roots exit and, often, an open-mouth view of the topmost vertebrae. More angles mean more chance of catching a subtle fracture, a narrowed nerve opening, or a slipped alignment that a front-and-side pair would miss. A still larger study exists for cases needing bending views on top of these.

## Selected release

- Release: Q4 2022 (2022 D)
- Effective: October 1 – December 31, 2022
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $55.02
- Facility national allowed amount: $55.02
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 0.27
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 1.30
- Facility practice expense RVU: 1.30
- Malpractice RVU: 0.02
- Conversion factor: 34.6062
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q4 2022)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/rvu22d.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU22_OCT.csv, row 12,622
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72050/2022/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72050/2022/D
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:12:03+00:00