CPT® 2027 Maternity Care Services code changes

The Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Editorial Panel has approved a significant restructuring of maternity care services codes for the CPT® 2027 code set.

Effective Jan. 1, 2027, CPT codes will better reflect modern obstetric practice, enable accurate and transparent reporting across the full pregnancy spectrum, and create the data foundation necessary to better attribute maternal care and support the complexities of team-based care throughout a patient's journey. These revisions were the result of nearly two years of collaborative work among the CPT Editorial Panel, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and other national medical specialty societies to arrive at a comprehensive solution.

To help the health care ecosystem prepare to implement these revisions and enable physicians to deliver the best care possible to their patients, the AMA is releasing the CPT 2027 codes for maternity care services ahead of the standard release schedule and providing early education and resources on the revisions to this section of the CPT code set.

Overview of what’s changing for maternity care services CPT codes

• Current state: Maternity care is largely reported using one “global” code that effectively represents nine months of care as a single service, which simplifies billing, but obscures care variation and complexity.
• Beginning Jan. 1, 2027: The CPT revisions will allow care to be reported more granularly at the service level, separately identifying four phases of care: antepartum, labor management, delivery and postpartum.

Why CPT codes for maternity care services are changing

​The delivery of maternity care has changed fundamentally over the past three decades:

• Pregnancy care is now routinely delivered by multiple, sometimes unaffiliated care teams across antepartum, labor management, delivery and postpartum phases.
• Patients are frequently transferred from rural hospitals to facilities equipped to manage higher-risk obstetric and neonatal cases, and today’s bundled codes do not adequately reflect that care.
• Antepartum care is now recommended as a “tailored” care approach that includes a patient-centered plan of care with a modified visit schedule that incorporates telehealth visits and is adjusted according to the medical and health related social needs of the patient, instead of the traditional thirteen antepartum visits.
• Labor management and postpartum care have evolved in intensity, duration and complexity beyond what current codes were designed to describe.

By moving beyond the legacy global model to a more granular framework, CPT 2027 codes for maternity care services:

• Reflect modern, team-based obstetric care: The restructure enables physicians to accurately report the care they deliver and offers payers visibility into real-world care delivery.
• Facilitate improved transparency, data quality and measurement: The restructure creates reliable tracking for quality improvement, risk adjustment and population-level analysis.
• Support evidence-based maternity care: The restructure aligns coding with evidence-based practice, improves attribution that allows measured outcomes, and supports appropriate postpartum follow-up and intervention.

How to prepare to implement these changes in 2027

To ensure that key stakeholders, including physicians, payers, medical coders and electronic health record (EHR) vendors, have sufficient time to prepare, the AMA is building awareness and offering education about the revisions. This page will be updated as additional resources become available.

Maternity care services resources

• Download the CPT 2027 codes and guidelines for maternity care services (PDF).
• CPT webinar (Register now): “A coding primer: Previewing the CPT 2027 restructure for maternity care services” (June 2, 2026).
• CPT webinar: “A health plan primer: Previewing the CPT 2027 restructure for maternity care services” (March 2, 2026).

Summary of revisions to CPT code descriptors and guidelines

In total, 17 codes were deleted, 12 codes were added and six codes were revised. The updates also include new subsections and revised guidelines, and the relocation of some existing codes.

Antepartum Care

• Includes all evaluation and management (E/M) care of the patient and/or fetus(es) prior to the onset of labor.
• All current antepartum care codes will be deleted and reported per encounter with an E/M code. As such, the current E/M rules will apply to these as well.
• Changes facilitate real-world reporting of the E/M service based on location of the patient (e.g., office, hospital or telemedicine).

Labor Management

• Daily reporting: Reported once per calendar date.
• Codes created for Initial and Subsequent Days.
  • Further divided into two levels: Straightforward (SF) and Complex.
• Facility reporting: “Initial Day” is reported once per facility admission unless there is a unique provider.
• Reporting is similar to existing guidelines for inpatient hospital care.

Delivery

• New, streamlined codes for vaginal deliveries (with and without episiotomy, vaginal birth after cesarian (VBAC) and cesarian deliveries (primary vs. repeat)).
• Codes incorporate delivery care only and are not dependent on performance of other maternity care components (labor management is reported separately).
• New, distinct codes added for:
  • Third-degree laceration or episiotomy repair
  • Fourth-degree laceration or episiotomy repair
  • Hysterectomy following cesarean delivery (as a stand-alone code)

Postpartum Care

• All current postpartum care codes will be deleted and reported per encounter with E/M codes in 2027. As such, the current E/M rules will apply to these as well.
• Routine postpartum care on the same calendar day as the delivery is incorporated in the delivery care code.
• For facility births, subsequent hospital care codes will be reported for each management day after delivery day, until discharge.
• New, distinct procedure code added for uterine tamponade.

Impacted codes

The CPT 2027 code set will include deleted, new and revised codes, which are listed on this page. For the full list of the CPT codes with guidelines for maternity care services that will be effective Jan. 1, 2027, download the CPT 2027 codes and guidelines for maternity care services (PDF). 

Deleted codes

1. 59050
2. 59400
3. 59409
4. 59410
5. 59425
6. 59426
7. 59430
8. 59510
9. 59514
10. 59515
11. 59525
12. 59610
13. 59612
14. 59614
15. 59618
16. 59620
17. 59622

New codes

1. 59080
2. 59081
3. 59082
4. 59083
5. 59431
6. 59432
7. 59433
8. 59434
9. 59502
10. 59503
11. 59504
12. 59623

Revised codes

1. 59412
2. 59051
3. 59414
4. 59300
5. 59898
6. 59899

Valuation of CPT 2027 codes for maternity care services

Sign up for CPT News

Get the latest news on CPT codes and content emailed directly to your inbox each month from the CPT authority. All subscriptions are free!

Subscribe Now

Immediately upon the adoption of the new maternity care coding structure in September 2025, a robust survey of over 650 obstetricians, family medicine physicians and nurse midwives was conducted to measure the time and intensity of these services. The data from these surveys were presented to the AMA/Specialty Society RVS Update Committee (RUC) in January 2026.

The RUC developed recommendations based on these data and intense deliberations prior to and during the RUC meeting. On Feb. 3, 2026, the RUC submitted recommendations to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the resources required to provide maternity care services. The AMA has made these recommendations public.

There are no direct practice expense costs associated with these services as those costs are incurred by the facility.

CMS will review these recommendations and other data, and propose relative values for these services in July 2026. After a 60-day comment period, final values will be published in November 2026 to be implemented on Jan. 1, 2027.

Using CDC information and payer data, the RUC analyzed its work relative value unit (RVU) recommendations and affirmed that, if adopted by CMS, the RVUs for the coding changes are anticipated to be budget neutral (i.e., the RVUs in total for the new codes will not exceed the RVUs of former bundled codes). Read the maternity care RUC recommendations (PDF).

Additional coding resources

• Explore the latest coding resources offered directly by the AMA, the authoritative source for CPT coding guidance.
• Attend the CPT & RBRVS 2027 Annual Symposium for a deep dive on the CPT 2027 changes.