ICPT CODING

Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes are used by healthcare professionals to
specify patient treatment services and the charges that are associated with the treatments
(Glauser et al., 2020). Some of the services and procedures that the codes are used to report
include surgical, radiology, laboratory, and diagnostic services. The aim of CPT codes is to
provide a uniform language that describes the various treatment and diagnostic procedures
that physicians and other healthcare professionals perform on patients.

By providing such uniform language, the codes aid in communication between
physicians and insurance companies, physicians and patients, and patients and insurance
companies. Thus, knowing proper CPT coding helps healthcare professionals to code in a
manner that hastens reimbursement of healthcare services by insurance companies, and
makes it easier for patients and other physicians to understand the patient’s medical problem.

It is important to note that CPT is not the only manual set of codes used to report
medical services and procedures. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is
another set of manual codes that serve a role similar to that served by CPT. There are a
number of differences between the two manual codes. First, while CPT provides a description
of the services and procedures that have been performed on a patient, ICD code describes a
patient’s diagnosis and their medical condition (Buck, 2017). The second difference between
the two is the frequency of updates. ICD codes are usually updated after every 10-15 years
while CPT codes get updated after every 3-5 years (Buck, 2017). The other major difference
between the two codes is their publishers. CPT codes are published by the American Medical
Association while ICD codes are published by the World Health Organization (WHO).

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References

Buck, C. (2017). Step-by-Step Medical Coding. Elsevier Health Services.

Glauser, G., Sharma, N., Beatson, N., Dimentberg, R., Savarese, F., Gagliardi, M., &
Malhotra, N. R. (2020). Surgical CPT Coding Discrepancies: Analysis of Surgeons
and Employed Coders. American Journal of Medical Quality, 1062860620959440.