Very Brief Blog: AMA Posts CPT Lab Codes for September Meeting

AMA holds 3 CPT meetings per year and posts the proposed codes in advance for public comment.   Lab codes are posted about 2 months ahead of the meeting, so comments are in before several AMA subcommittees meet.   Other CPT codes are posted about a six weeks before the meeting.

On July 16, 2019, AMA posted for comment the CPT lab codes for the Seattle meeting September 26-28.    (By July 19, AMA should also post current pending PLA code applications, too.)

• See the AMA CPT PDF (with comment instructions) here.   

You can get a copy of the application form for comment, but you must meet AMA criteria as being an interested stakeholder directly affected by the code proposal.

I very briefly summarize the codes below.  See PDF for more details.  Note that in some cases, different applicants may submit for codes with related descriptors; whether that has happened to any of these, I'm not sure.

Tab 29
Four Tier 1 codes (SF3B1, etc)

Tab 30
Tier 1 NTRK

Tab 31
SF3B1 common variants

Tab 32
Tier 2 to Tier 1 for TP53

Tab 33
Tier 2 to Tier 1 for MPL

Tab 34
Tier 2 to Tier 1 for JAK2

Tab 35
Tier 2 to Tier 1 for IGH-BLC2

Tab 36
Tier 2 to Tier 1 for CCD1-IGH

Tab 37
GSP for Epilepsy Panel

Tab 38
GSP to remove RNA from 81445 and add new code

Tab 39
MAAA for Melanoma recurrence

Tab 40
Wound pathogens by PCR

Tab 41
Infectious agents UTI's by STI (sexually transmitted)

Tab 42
PCR, Nail pathogens

Tab 43
Antibiotic resistance testing

Tab 44
PLA Instructions.  Instructions on when to revise code text and when to use new code.

Tab 80
PCR for non-sexual UTI pathogens