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An Inside Look at How the CPT Is Kept Balanced and Current

by Linda Kossoff •

Linda Kossoff is a freelance medical writer based in Woodland Hills, Calif.

Coded Emergency

Keeping up with the pace of medicine is challenging in any given year, but the arrival and ongoing presence of SARS-CoV-2 in 2020 and 2021 has put the entire global healthcare community to the test. Among the many examples is the task of maintaining the CPT code set. In November 2020, the American Medical Association (AMA) introduced the first COVID-19 vaccine-specific CPT codes to facilitate updating healthcare electronic systems across the U.S. Since then, implementing code changes to clinically distinguish each vaccine and dosing schedule has become a vital aspect of CPT system maintenance.

“We are spending an enormous amount of energy to ensure that the vaccine codes, which is both the vaccine itself and the administrative services for delivering that vaccine, are being kept up to date—even before those vaccines become cleared for emergency authorization or full clearance,” reported Laurie McGraw, senior vice president of Health Solutions at the AMA.

Telemedicine is another huge area that exploded after the virus took hold in 2020. “I think we’re up to 10 emergency meetings now to deal with all of the needed telemedicine codes,” McGraw noted, “but the code set system is at the ready.”

The entire CPT code set for 2022 was released in September 2021; however, for anyone seeking assistance in locating specific COVID-19 vaccine CPT codes, the organization has designed a special online resource that can be accessed at https://www.ama-assn.org/find-covid-19- vaccine-codes.