# CPT 72131

> Medicare paid $142.36 for CPT 72131 in the office (non-facility) setting and $142.36 in a facility under the Q2 2021 Physician Fee Schedule, effective April 2021. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2021, when it decreased 9.5%.

## What it is

A CT scan of the lower back, covering the lumbar vertebrae and usually the top of the sacrum, taken without contrast dye and rebuilt into side and front views. It gives excellent detail of bone - fractures, slipped vertebrae, arthritic facet joints, narrowing of the canal from bone overgrowth - and is the usual choice when MRI is unavailable or ruled out by a pacemaker or other implant. Contrast versions of the same region exist and are reserved mainly for suspected infection or tumor.

## Selected release

- Release: Q2 2021 (2021 B)
- Effective: April 1 – June 30, 2021
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $142.36
- Facility national allowed amount: $142.36
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 1.00
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 3.02
- Facility practice expense RVU: 3.02
- Malpractice RVU: 0.06
- Conversion factor: 34.8931
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q2 2021)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/rvu21b-updated-03022021.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU21_APR.csv, row 12,335
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72131/2021/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72131/2021/B
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:10:33+00:00