Call to replace AMA's Medicare coding system falls flat

Sen. Trent Lott's attack on CPT codes is criticized as political payback, unnecessary and too costly.

By Markian Hawryluk, AMNews staff. Aug. 27, 2001.

Washington -- A proposal to replace CPT codes within Medicare and Medicaid with an alternate coding system for physician outpatient services is finding little support in the health care community.

In the wake of a recent letter from Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R, Miss.) to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services requesting the agency look into another coding system for publicly funded health care programs, few physicians or insurers are jumping on the bandwagon.

Replacing the Current Procedural Terminology codes would wreak havoc, said Jean Harris, regulatory and coding specialist at the American College of Surgeons and a former CMS employee.

"It would be a whole new system to learn, and to train all the physicians and all the office staff, it would take a tremendous amount of training." Researchers and health professionals would lose the ability to compare new data with historical trends if the codes were reset, she added.

There is general satisfaction with CPT codes, notwithstanding AMA's licensing requirements, said Harvey Friedman, Medicare contracting officer for the BlueCross BlueShield Assn. "Obviously, it's a bit of an inconvenience, but I'm not aware of it being a barrier to anything."

One alternative suggested by Lott is the new update of the ICD-9 coding system used to track inpatient procedures. That version, ICD-10-PCS, has been pilot-tested and has prompted calls to use it for outpatient care as well. But even proponents of such a change admit it would be years before a transition could be made. [...]