# CPT 72100

> Medicare paid $35.64 for CPT 72100 in the office (non-facility) setting and $35.64 in a facility under the Q4 2018 Physician Fee Schedule, effective October 2018. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2018, when it increased 0.3%.

## What it is

A short plain-film study of the lower back, usually a front and a side picture and sometimes a third angle, covering the lumbar vertebrae and often the sacrum where the spine meets the pelvis. It shows alignment, disc space height, arthritic change, and vertebral fractures, but not discs or nerves themselves, which need MRI. A larger lumbar study exists for when oblique or bending views are also required.

## Selected release

- Release: Q4 2018 (2018 D)
- Effective: October 1 – December 31, 2018
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $35.64
- Facility national allowed amount: $35.64
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 0.22
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 0.75
- Facility practice expense RVU: 0.75
- Malpractice RVU: 0.02
- Conversion factor: 35.9996
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q4 2018)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service-payment/physicianfeesched/downloads/rvu18d.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU18_OCT.csv, row 11,810
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72100/2018/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72100/2018/D
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:08:37+00:00