wRVU Values for Common CPT Codes (2026): 99213, 99214, and More

Quick reference: 2026 wRVU values for common office E/M codes

The numbers below are the national work RVU (wRVU) values from the CMS Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) for the most-used outpatient evaluation and management (E/M) codes. These are the productivity units most wRVU-based compensation plans track. They are not dollar amounts, and they are not the same as the Medicare conversion factor used to pay claims (more on that below).

These wRVU values have been stable since the 2021 office-visit revaluation, but CMS can revise any individual code each year. Always confirm a specific code against the current CMS PFS Relative Value Files or the official Look-Up Tool before using it in a contract or model (see the lookup section below).

What a wRVU actually measures (and what it does not)

Each CPT code is assigned three relative value units in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule: the work RVU (wRVU), the practice expense RVU, and the malpractice RVU. The wRVU is meant to capture the physician's time, technical skill, mental effort, and stress for that service relative to other services.

Two points that trip people up:

• A wRVU is a unit, not a dollar. Code 99214 is worth 1.92 wRVUs whether you are paid $40 or $80 per wRVU.
• The wRVU is the same nationwide. Geographic adjustments (GPCI) affect the total Medicare payment for a claim, not the work RVU itself. When your employer counts production, they typically count raw, unadjusted wRVUs.

If you bill 99214 with the G2211 add-on for a patient you manage longitudinally, you generate 1.92 + 0.33 = 2.25 wRVUs for that encounter.

How wRVUs turn into a paycheck (and why it isn't the Medicare rate)

This is the single most important distinction in physician compensation, and the two numbers are easy to confuse.

Your pay: wRVUs x your employer's negotiated rate

Under a production model, your compensation for clinical work is:

Pay = total wRVUs x your employer's $/wRVU rate

That $/wRVU rate is a negotiated compensation benchmark, commonly in the range of roughly $35-$85. It tends to run around $45-$60 for primary care and higher (often $60-$90+) for surgical and procedural subspecialties. It is set by your employer, not by CMS.

Medicare's billing math is a different calculation entirely

Medicare pays a practice for a claim using the PFS conversion factor, which it multiplies by a code's total RVUs (work + practice expense + malpractice, each geographically adjusted). Beginning in CY2026, the Medicare PFS has two statutory conversion factors for the first time:

• $33.57 for qualifying Advanced APM participants (up 3.77% from the 2025 conversion factor of $32.35)
• $33.40 for non-qualifying participants (up 3.26% from $32.35)

Both reflect a one-year 2.5% payment bump from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act plus a small budget-neutrality adjustment, per the CY2026 PFS Final Rule (CMS-1832-F).

The takeaway: that ~$33 figure is what Medicare uses to reimburse a claim. It is not the rate your employer pays you per wRVU, and the two are usually far apart. Notably, the Medicare conversion factor has actually drifted down over the years (about $36.04 in 2019 to $33.40 in 2026), even as employer pay-per-wRVU rates have generally risen. Never plug the Medicare conversion factor into your personal pay estimate.

Why the 2021 E/M overhaul still shapes these numbers

If you have been practicing since before 2021, today's office-visit wRVUs look generously higher than they used to, and there is a reason.

Effective January 1, 2021, CMS overhauled the outpatient E/M codes (new patient 99202-99205 and established patient 99211-99215). Documentation was simplified to medical decision-making or total time, and the work RVUs were substantially increased. Established-patient codes 99212-99215 rose by roughly 28% on average. For example:

• 99213 climbed from about 0.97 to 1.30 wRVUs (~30%)
• 99214 climbed from about 1.50 to 1.92 wRVUs

Because the fee schedule is budget-neutral, CMS offset those higher RVUs by cutting the conversion factor (the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 softened the cut, leaving the 2021 conversion factor at $34.89). The practical consequence for anyone on a wRVU contract: measured productivity jumped for the exact same clinical work, even though Medicare's payment per RVU did not rise to match. That mismatch is why many employers re-based their $/wRVU rates downward in 2021 to keep total compensation roughly neutral. If your contract predates 2021 or hasn't been revisited since, it is worth understanding which side of that adjustment you landed on.

How CMS updates these values and how to look up any code

CMS reviews the Physician Fee Schedule every year. Most updates arrive through the annual PFS rulemaking cycle: a proposed rule in the summer, then a final rule released around the end of October that takes effect the following January 1. Individual codes can be revalued on roughly a five-year (and increasingly rolling) review cadence, so a given wRVU may sit unchanged for years and then move in a single update. The 2021 office-visit revaluation is the clearest recent example of a large, deliberate change.

To verify any CPT code's wRVU

1. Go to the CMS Physician Fee Schedule Look-Up Tool (search "CMS PFS Look-Up Tool"), or download the annual National Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value File from CMS.
2. Enter the CPT/HCPCS code and the correct year.
3. Read the Work RVU column. That is the figure your compensation plan uses; ignore the practice-expense and malpractice columns for pay purposes.

A few cautions when you do this:

• Use the non-facility or facility wRVU as appropriate, but note the work RVU is generally the same in both settings; the site of service mainly changes practice-expense RVUs.
• Watch for modifiers and add-on codes (like G2211), which carry their own wRVUs.
• Confirm the effective year. A value that was correct last year may have been revised.