The American Medical Association (AMA) has released new CPT codes for the coming year, which places an emphasis on the importance of telehealth.
With almost 250 new codes added this year, there is numerous focus on the trend towards remote patient monitoring (RPM). For example, codes 99473 and 99474 were created to record self-reported blood pressure monitoring, to ease the process of classifying advances in RPM.
“There are 394 code changes in the 2020 CPT code set, including 248 new codes, 71 deletions, and 75 revisions. In making these updates, the CPT Editorial Panel considered broad input from physicians, medical specialty societies and the greater health care community.” -AMA
To meet the increase in reliance on telehealth, the AMA generated six new codes regarding e-visits for when patients consult with their providers online. “With the advance of new technologies for e-visits and health monitoring, many patients are realizing the best access point for physician care is once again their home,” said President of the American Medical Association Patrice A. Harris, M.D., M.A.
Dr. Harris went on to state:
“The new CPT codes will promote the integration of these home-based services that can be a significant part of a digital solution for expanding access to health care, preventing and managing chronic disease, and overcoming geographic and socioeconomic barriers to care.”
These codes went into effect on January 1, 2020. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to get more details on these codes!
Cetintell plays a key role in the implementation of telehealth into health centers across the nation. By working with safety-net providers to expand telehealth services to reach underserved populations, Certintell helps to increase access to healthcare and is an integral part of advances in RPM and care management. Certintell provides many of the services outlined in the service codes including behavioral health integration (BHI), transitional care management (TCM), remote patient monitoring (RPM) and chronic care management (CCM).
Editor’s Note: This post was updated to better reflect that billing for RPM services is not allowed by CMS.
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