# CPT 72070

> Medicare paid $31.62 for CPT 72070 in the office (non-facility) setting and $31.62 in a facility under the Q4 2015 Physician Fee Schedule, effective October 2015. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This is a 0.5% increase from the previous quarter.

## What it is

Plain X-rays of the twelve vertebrae of the mid back, the ones the ribs attach to, taken as a basic front and side pair. The side view is the one that matters most here, because it shows vertebral height and will reveal a compression fracture where the front of a bone has wedged down. Codes for larger studies of the same region cover the addition of further angles.

## Selected release

- Release: Q4 2015 (2015 D)
- Effective: October 1 – December 31, 2015
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $31.62
- Facility national allowed amount: $31.62
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 0.22
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 0.63
- Facility practice expense RVU: 0.63
- Malpractice RVU: 0.03
- Conversion factor: 35.9335
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q4 2015)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service-payment/physicianfeesched/downloads/rvu15d.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU15_OCT05_V1001.csv, row 11,228
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72070/2015/D
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72070/2015/D
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:06:14+00:00