# CPT 73721

> Medicare paid $232.42 for CPT 73721 in the office (non-facility) setting and $232.42 in a facility under the Q4 2020 Physician Fee Schedule, effective October 2020. These are the national allowed amounts before the ~2% sequestration cut and before locality (GPCI) adjustment. This price has been unchanged since Q1 2020, when it decreased 1.8%.

## What it is

An MRI of a joint in the lower limb - most often the knee, but also the hip, ankle, or a joint in the foot - done without contrast dye. MRI uses a magnetic field rather than X-rays, which is why it is the study of choice for soft tissue: cartilage, ligaments, tendons, and the meniscus show up in a way plain films and CT cannot match. This is the plain version; the same joint scanned with contrast, or before and after contrast, falls under different codes.

## Selected release

- Release: Q4 2020 (2020 D)
- Effective: October 1 – December 31, 2020
- Status indicator: A
- Office (non-facility) national allowed amount: $232.42
- Facility national allowed amount: $232.42
- Sequestration: not applied

## RVUs and formula

- Work RVU: 1.35
- Office (non-facility) practice expense RVU: 5.01
- Facility practice expense RVU: 5.01
- Malpractice RVU: 0.08
- Conversion factor: 36.0896
- Formula: `(work_rvu × work_gpci + pe_rvu × pe_gpci + mp_rvu × mp_gpci) × conversion_factor`

## Source and citation

- Source: Physician relative value file (Q4 2020)
- CMS file: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/rvu20d-updated-11232020.zip
- Parsed file: PPRRVU20_OCT.csv, row 12,656
- Canonical page: https://localishealth.com/cpt/73721/2020/A
- Release-specific citation URL: https://localishealth.com/cpt/73721/2020/D
- Last significant update: 2026-08-04T03:10:00+00:00