CPT wRVUs · 2026

CPT 99204 — New patient visit — moderate complexity (level 4)

2026 work RVU (wRVU) · was 2.43 in 2020

What 99204 is worth

A wRVU is a unit of physician work, not a dollar amount. Your pay for 99204 is 2.60 × 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. At an example $50/wRVU, one 99204 is about $130.00 of production credit.

Heads-up: this code's work RVU changed from 2.43 (2020) to 2.60 (2026). If your contract prices wRVUs on a frozen older CMS year, the same visit can credit fewer wRVUs — see why your wRVUs changed in 2021.

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.

FAQ

How many wRVUs is CPT 99204?

For 2026, CPT 99204 (new patient visit — moderate complexity (level 4)) carries a work RVU of 2.60.

How much does 99204 pay?

Pay = 2.60 wRVU × your employer's negotiated $/wRVU rate. At an example $50/wRVU that's about $130.00 of production credit — your actual rate is set by your contract, not by Medicare's conversion factor.

Did the wRVU for 99204 change?

Yes — its work RVU moved from 2.43 (2020) to 2.60 (2026). CMS revalues codes over time, so always price against the current-year schedule.

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.