CPT Coding System

CPT Coding System

Current Procedural Terminology (CPT), Fourth Edition, is a listing of descriptive terms and identifying codes for reporting medical services and procedures. The purpose of CPT is to provide a uniform language that accurately describes medical, surgical, and diagnostic services, and thereby serves as an effective means for reliable nationwide communication among physicians, patients, and
third parties

The American Medical Association (AMA) first developed and published CPT in 1966. The first edition helped encourage the use of standard terms and descriptors to document procedures in the medical record; helped communicate accurate information on procedures and services to agencies concerned with insurance claims; provided the basis for a computer-oriented system to evaluate operative procedures; and contributed basic information for actuarial and statistical purposes.

The first edition of the CPT code book contained primarily surgical procedures, with limited sections on medicine, radiology, and laboratory procedures.
The second edition was published in 1970, and presented an expanded work of terms and codes to designate diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in surgery, medicine, and the specialties. At that time, five-digit coding was introduced, replacing the former four-digit classification. Another significant change was a listing of procedures relating to internal medicine.

In the mid- to late 1970s, the third and fourth editions of the CPT code were introduced. The fourth edition, published in 1977, represented significant updates in medical technology, and a procedure of periodic updating was introduced to keep pace with the rapidly changing medical environment. In 1983, the CPT code was adopted as part of the HealthCare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) (Formerly called as HealthCare Financing Administration's (HCFA) Common Procedure Coding System) . With this adoption, HCFA mandated the use of HCPCS to report services for Part B of the Medicare Program. In October 1986, CMS also required State Medicaid agencies to use HCPCS in the Medicaid Management Information System. In July 1987, as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, HCFA mandated the use of CPT for reporting outpatient hospital surgical procedures. Today, in addition to use in federal programs (Medicare and Medicaid), CPT is used extensively throughout the United States as the preferred work of coding and describing health care services