For more than a decade, the AMA and CPT Editorial Panel (Panel) have taken intentional and concrete steps to create transparency and expand access to meeting materials and deliberations related to the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) code set.
Recent initiatives have accelerated visibility, building on earlier changes designed to strengthen stakeholder understanding and participation. Additional efforts are underway to make the Panel’s work more accessible, more participatory, and more understandable for the U.S. healthcare system.
Upcoming changes
The most significant near-term change is the upcoming release of full initial meeting minutes following the September 2026 CPT Editorial Panel meeting. The minutes will be posted on the AMA website, providing for the first time the general public with the voted-on language of the Panel’s deliberations. A companion effort is also underway to comprehensively review all process steps prior to the Panel meeting to reduce any unnecessary impacts from the confidentiality policy on the process. The intent is to allow as much open and transparent participation with the Panel as possible.
These steps follow a 2025 update to the Panel's confidentiality framework that narrowed the scope of what is considered confidential and explicitly confirmed that meeting participants may summarize or disclose discussions (without attribution) from open session. The 2025 update also confirmed that applicants may collaborate on related coding applications and that organizational representatives may share confidential information internally for coding purposes.
Open process evolution
- In 2026, in line with the Panel’s desire to allow innovation to reach the market as quickly as possible, expedited approval and effective dates for Category III CPT codes were approved. Similar to immunization codes, Category III CPT codes describing new and novel technologies went from being released twice a year to three times a year. Furthermore, the effective date was reduced from six months after release to three months. This change also better aligns Category III CPT codes with the release schedule for all other non-Category I CPT codes in the code set.
- In 2025, the Panel increased the publication cadence of Category I immunization codes from twice a year to three times a year, recognizing the public health interest in enabling physicians and qualified healthcare professionals (QHPs) to report the administration of vaccines and other immunization products as quickly as possible. The Panel has also responded to public health emergencies, expediting early releases of CPT codes outside of the established schedule, such as codes enabling the reporting of avian (bird) flu immunizations and rubeola virus (measles) molecular detection.
- In 2021, the Panel expanded from 17 to 21 members to broaden clinical and technical representation, added a designated seat for a physician with industry or nontraditional clinical experience, and created non-voting liaison seats for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC).
- In 2020, the Panel shifted to hybrid meetings open to all registrants.
- In 2016, the Panel established the Interested Party process, the formal mechanism by which any member of the public can request to review code change applications and submit comments to the Panel for consideration.
- Since 2014, structured feedback sessions and stakeholder forums have been hosted to gather input on emerging areas such as telemedicine, value-based care, digital medicine and AI-enabled services. More recently, the Panel has held these stakeholder sessions multiple times per year as an efficient way to gather information from a large stakeholder base.
- Since October 2011, a document summarizing the Panel’s actions on each of the code applications has been published on the AMA website following each meeting.
- In 2005, the Panel shifted to an open review process, permitting any interested parties beyond Panel members and CPT Advisors to register to attend meetings and comment on code change proposals.
Open process impact
The steps taken to make the CPT Editorial Panel process more open have led to a dramatic increase in formal stakeholder participation. In 2021, the Interested Party process included 289 requests for meeting materials. By 2025, that number had grown to 3,297 requests by Interested Parties, who have the opportunity to submit written and public comments before and during deliberations. The expansion was driven in part by a technological update that reduced barriers to formal participation, but the scale of the response reflects genuine interest from physicians and other QHPs, payers, government agencies, patient representatives and industry stakeholders.
Panel meetings themselves now routinely draw more than 1,100 registrants, any of whom may request to submit written comments or offer open testimony before and during deliberations. The breadth of that participation is not incidental. The clinical rigor of the CPT code set depends on the range of perspectives that inform it, and the Panel's hybrid, open process is the mechanism through which that range of expertise is assembled.
Additional resources
- CPT Editorial Panel process
- Interested Party process
- Code change application process
- CPT Editorial Panel calendar: Meeting dates, code application due dates, Interested Party deadlines, Summary of Panel Actions posting dates
- CPT leadership opportunities: Nomination process and applications
