AMA Releases Agenda, Proposals for May CPT Meeting; Permission to Comment Available to April 15

As AMA prepares for its May 2021 CPT meeting, it has released the agenda of code proposals.  Interested stakeholders can obtain a copy of the application packets by requested by April 15, and then, responding by April 22.  AMA screens the requests to comment for being a validly involved stakeholder (e.g. not a journalist, not just curious, etc).   For example, a competitor company is a valid stakeholder.

See the code proposal list here:

https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/2021-03/cpt-panel-may-2021-agenda.pdf

There are circa 54 total agenda topics.  It looks like 17 are for Category III codes.  The codes range from Tab 6, Revise Non Face to Face Inter-Professional Consultation (99451), to Tab 60, a proposal to create a code for cytogenomic (genomic wide) analysis by the low-pass sequencing method (styled as an addition to the 81228/81229 cytogenomics code family).   This technique has been reported to have less adverse racial bias that some other methods (here).

My vote for most interesting/unusual/unexpected application is Tab 8, "Climate related health counseling."  On the digital front, see Tab 15 (CT post processing with artificial intelligence for low dose CT), and the pair Tab 46 (validated digital online therapy program) and Tab 47 (remote cognitive digital behavioral therapy.)

It might be a bit scary for owners of Cat III codes that there are ~17 new applications for these codes, but I only counted 1 application to elevate a Cat III to a Cat I code and 17 applications for simple deletion of Cat III codes.  

###

Lab test items had an earlier comment cycle in the beginning of March (entry point here) to allow the comments be available for pre-May subgroups for lab tests (Molecular Pathology Advisory Group MPAG, Pathology Coding Caucus PCC.)