CPT code 01938: Spinal procedure anesthesia, lumbar or sacral2026 Medicare rate & RVUs in Tennessee

CMS doesn’t publish a rate for 01938 in Tennessee.

Check a contract rate as a % of Medicare · 01938 nationwide

Medicare allowed amount for participating (non-QP) physicians, before deductible, coinsurance and claim adjustments. Not a patient’s bill or a hospital charge.

What 01938 covers

This service covers anesthesia for percutaneous procedures that use imaging to guide an injection, drainage, or aspiration in the lumbar or sacral spine or spinal cord. An anesthesiologist or CRNA may provide and report the anesthesia; the clinician performing the spinal procedure reports that procedure separately.

Choose this code for the lumbar or sacral region, not the cervical or thoracic counterpart, 01937. It covers injection, drainage, or aspiration procedures rather than lumbar or sacral procedures using a neurolytic agent or neuromodulation. The record should identify the procedure, lumbar or sacral site, image-guided percutaneous approach, and anesthesia practitioner’s time. Medicare payment is (4 base units + time units) × the anesthesia conversion factor. Time starts when the practitioner begins preparing the patient for anesthesia and ends when the practitioner is no longer personally attending and the patient can safely be placed under postoperative care; minutes are converted to 15-minute units to one decimal place, and the conversion factor varies by locality.

This summary was written with AI assistance from CMS physician fee schedule data and checked against the CMS billing rules shown here. Rates on this page come directly from CMS files.

How Tennessee compares for 01938

Every other payment area

01938 rates by state

Office rate range in each state. Select a state to see its payment localities.

See 01938 in every payment locality

How the 01938 rate is calculated

Each of 01938’s three RVUs is multiplied by a geographic index (GPCI) for the payment locality, added up, and multiplied by the conversion factor. Drag the indexes or enter a ZIP to see what moves the rate.

Payment rules and modifiers for 01938

01938 has no global surgery period, no multiple-procedure, bilateral or assistant-at-surgery adjustment, and no professional/technical split. What changes the payment is where the service happens: the place of service on the claim decides whether Medicare pays the office or the facility rate.

Codes related to 01938

Related codes aren’t interchangeable: bill the code that matches the service performed.

How 01938 has changed in Tennessee

Price 01938 for an earlier date of service

Where the Tennessee rate applies

Tennessee is a Medicare payment area, not a city. Our Census mapping connects it to 504 cities and communities in Tennessee. Some span more than one payment area; confirm with the service ZIP.

• Adams
• Adamsville
• Alamo
• Alcoa
• Alexandria
• Algood
• Allardt
• Altamont

Browse all communities in Tennessee

Where these rates come from

FeeBase calculates base physician payments from CMS work, practice-expense and malpractice RVUs, adjusted by each locality’s geographic indexes and the conversion factor. Services without a published rate are labeled, never given a made-up amount. Amounts are Medicare allowed amounts before claim adjustments: not a patient’s bill or a commercial rate.

CMS RVU26D · effective Oct 1, 2026 through the day before Jan 1, 2027

Open CMS sourceHow we calculate rates