# CPT 72146

> Medicare paid $215.64 for CPT 72146 in the office (non-facility) setting and $215.64 in a facility under the Q1 2021 Physician Fee Schedule, effective January 2021. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This is a 2.2% decrease from the previous quarter.

## What it is

An MRI of the thoracic spine - the middle stretch of the backbone that the ribs attach to - performed without injected contrast dye. It shows the vertebrae, the discs between them, and the spinal cord as it passes through the chest. It is the mid-back counterpart to the neck and low-back MRI codes, and it is the plain version rather than the dye-enhanced one.

## Selected release

- Release: Q1 2021 (2021 A)
- Effective: January 1 – March 31, 2021
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $215.64
- Facility national allowed amount: $215.64
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 1.48
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 4.63
- Facility practice expense RVU: 4.63
- Malpractice RVU: 0.07
- 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 (Q1 2021)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/rvu21a-updated-01052021.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU21_JAN.csv, row 12,339
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72146/2021/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72146/2021/A
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:10:16+00:00