# CPT 73221

> Medicare paid $228.90 for CPT 73221 in the office (non-facility) setting and $228.90 in a facility under the Q4 2021 Physician Fee Schedule, effective October 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 2.0%.

## What it is

An MRI of one joint in the arm - most often the shoulder, but also the elbow or wrist - performed with no injected contrast dye. Unlike an X-ray, it shows the soft tissues: tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and the fluid inside the joint. This plain version is the standard first choice; matching codes cover the same joint scanned with dye, or scanned both ways.

## Selected release

- Release: Q4 2021 (2021 D)
- Effective: October 1 – December 31, 2021
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $228.90
- Facility national allowed amount: $228.90
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 1.35
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 5.13
- Facility practice expense RVU: 5.13
- Malpractice RVU: 0.08
- 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 (Q4 2021)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/rvu21d.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU21_OCT.csv, row 12,597
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/73221/2021/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/73221/2021/D
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:10:59+00:00