CPT wRVUs · 2026 · procedure
CPT 51702 — Insert indwelling Foley catheter
2026 work RVU (wRVU) · decreased from 0.50 in 2020
What 51702 is worth
A wRVU is a unit of physician work, not a dollar amount. Your pay for 51702 is 0.49 × your employer's $/wRVU rate — a figure negotiated in your contract, commonly in the ~$35–90 range depending on specialty and market. That rate is not the Medicare conversion factor (about $33 for 2026), which is a billing rate, not a pay rate.
What 51702 pays at different contract rates
One 51702 equals 0.49 wRVU. Here is the production credit that generates at a range of common $/wRVU rates:
| Contract rate | Pay per 51702 |
|---|---|
| $40/wRVU | $19.60 |
| $50/wRVU | $24.50 |
| $60/wRVU | $29.40 |
| $70/wRVU | $34.30 |
| $80/wRVU | $39.20 |
At a mid-market $55/wRVU, doing this code about 20× a week works out to roughly 470 wRVU and $25,872 of production a year — before any threshold, tiering, or bonus in your contract.
51702 wRVU history (2020–2026)
CMS has revalued this code since 2020: its work RVU decreased from 0.50 to 0.49. If your contract prices wRVUs on a frozen older CMS year, the same visit can credit a different number of wRVUs than the current schedule — see why wRVUs changed in 2021 and how to audit what you were credited.
| CMS year | wRVU |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 0.50 |
| 2021 | 0.50 |
| 2022 | 0.50 |
| 2023 | 0.50 |
| 2024 | 0.50 |
| 2025 | 0.50 |
| 2026 | 0.49 |
How to track it
Confirm the value your billing system credited against the current CMS Physician Fee Schedule, and keep your own per-encounter log so you can catch any discrepancy between what you billed and what landed on your comp report. The free RVU calculator totals wRVUs across codes for any CMS year.
Related procedure codes
Other codes physicians look up alongside 51702:
51701 — Straight (in-and-out) bladder catheter · wRVU 0.49 46083 — Incise an external thrombosed hemorrhoid · wRVU 1.41 57415 — Remove impacted foreign body from the vagina (with anesthesia) · wRVU 2.43 65205 — Remove superficial foreign body from eye (conjunctiva) · wRVU 0.48 65210 — Remove embedded foreign body from eye (conjunctiva) · wRVU 0.59 65220 — Remove foreign body from cornea (no slit lamp) · wRVU 0.69FAQ
How many wRVUs is CPT 51702?
For 2026, CPT 51702 (insert indwelling foley catheter) carries a work RVU of 0.49.
How much does 51702 pay?
Pay = 0.49 wRVU × your employer's negotiated $/wRVU rate. At an example $50/wRVU that's about $24.50 of production credit — your actual rate is set by your contract, not by Medicare's conversion factor.
Did the wRVU for 51702 change?
Yes — its work RVU decreased from 0.50 (2020) to 0.49 (2026). CMS revalues codes over time, so always price against the current-year schedule.
Is 51702 the Medicare conversion factor times a dollar amount?
No. The wRVU (0.49) measures physician work only. Your pay is that wRVU times your contract's $/wRVU rate, which is set by your employer — not the ~$33 Medicare conversion factor, which governs billing, not physician compensation.
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Educational only — not coding, billing, or financial advice. wRVU values reflect the CMS Physician Fee Schedule and change over time; the plain-language description is our own, not the AMA's copyrighted CPT descriptor. Confirm values against current CMS data.