# CPT 72158

> Medicare paid $378.41 for CPT 72158 in the office (non-facility) setting and $378.41 in a facility under the Q4 2019 Physician Fee Schedule, effective October 2019. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2019, when it decreased 2.2%.

## What it is

An MRI of the lumbar spine - the low back - run twice in one sitting: first plain, then again after contrast dye is injected into a vein. Comparing the two sets of images helps separate scar tissue from a genuinely recurrent disc problem, and makes infection or tumor light up clearly. This is the most thorough of the three low-back MRI options, which otherwise cover plain-only or dye-only studies.

## Selected release

- Release: Q4 2019 (2019 D)
- Effective: October 1 – December 31, 2019
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $378.41
- Facility national allowed amount: $378.41
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 2.29
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 8.06
- Facility practice expense RVU: 8.06
- Malpractice RVU: 0.15
- Conversion factor: 36.0391
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q4 2019)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service-payment/physicianfeesched/downloads/rvu19d.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU19_OCT.csv, row 12,152
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72158/2019/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/72158/2019/D
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:09:13+00:00