The coding system (CPT) of the American Medical Association aims to offer doctors a uniform system to codify services, and that allows to streamline reports and increase accuracy and efficiency. For years, doctors and other health professionals have relied on CPT to communicate to their colleagues, patients, hospitals and insurers about the procedures they have carried out.
The CPT has descriptive terms whose medical nomenclature is the most widely accepted and used to inform medical procedures and services in public and private health insurance programs. For administrative management purposes this system of terminology is also used for the processing of claims and the development of guidelines for the review of medical care.
Medical education and research also benefit from the use of a uniform language system by providing a useful basis for comparisons of local, regional and national use.
The CPT, in addition to being used in federal programs (Medicare and Medicaid), is also widely used in the United States as the preferred system for coding and describing health care services.
CPT codes are updated annually as the designated standard for the physician’s electronic report and other professional health care services under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), and take effect on January 1 of each year. The American Medical Association is responsible for preparing each annual update so that new CPT books are available in the fall of each year that precedes its effective date to allow for implementation.
The AMA made a recent publication on the set of current procedural terminology codes for the year 2019.
On August 31 of this year, the process of changes to the new set of codes was completed and on September 5, the AMA officially announced its launch.
The connotations related to the launch of new codes are the following:
- (335) changes were published in the new set of codes.
Among the 335 changes, three new remote codes are included for patient monitoring. Two new interprofessional Internet consultation codes reflect the key role that non-verbal communication technology plays in coordinating care between a treating and treating physician, according to the AMA. - The association established for next year, that the codes for skin biopsy, fine needle aspiration biopsy and adaptive behavior analysis will also be reviewed.
- Other changes in coding are related to evaluations of the central nervous system, including psychological and neuropsychological tests.
The availability of new technological and scientific advances for general clinical practice, in addition to the fact that the code set can fulfill its function of trust as a common language of the health system to inform contemporary medical procedures, are the main objectives that reflect the coding changes according to what was said by the president of the AMA Barbara McAneny, MD
The collaboration of doctors, societies of medical specialties and other members of the health community allowed the development of the set of CPT codes established for the year 2019. It is operative on January 1.
