The 2025 Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) code set, released by the American Medical Association (AMA) on September 1, includes 270 new codes, 38 revisions, and 112 deletions. Some of the most significant changes are to telemedicine services, Category III codes (augmented/artificial intelligence), digital medicine (remote therapeutic monitoring), general surgery, and vaccines.
It’s crucial for all provider organizations to familiarize themselves with these changes before the implementation date of January 1, 2025, to ensure accurate clinical documentation and optimal reimbursement.
For an in-depth look at the changes, check out our recent webinar, led by IMO Health medical coding experts June Bronnert, MHI, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P and Shelly L. Jude, RHIA, RHIT, HIT.
Pressed for time? Keep scrolling for five key updates.
1. Telemedicine
Practitioners were performing telehealth services prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but a rapid expansion of these services was required during the crisis to meet healthcare needs in diverse settings.
The 2025 CPT code set includes a new section of evaluation and management codes (E/M) with 17 options to document audio/video services for new and established patients. The update also includes audio-only codes.
2. Augmented/Artificial intelligence (AI)
Category III of the CPT code set includes the AI Taxonomy, introduced in 2023 to classify AI medical services and procedures as assistive, augmentative, or autonomous based on the kind of work performed by the AI application on behalf of the provider.
The 2025 update features seven new category III codes for AI augmentative data analysis involved in electrocardiogram measurements (0902T and 0932T), medical chest imagining (0877T-0880T), and image-guided prostate biopsy (0898T).
3. Remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM)
RTM services enable providers to remotely evaluate whether a specific treatment or therapy works as expected. Most payers require patients to either self-report this data or upload it digitally. The RTM section will undergo various changes in 2025 to allow for increased specificity in code descriptions.
Specifically, code 98975 was updated to include digital therapeutic intervention, while codes 98976-98978 were revised to include device supply for data access or data transmissions to support RTM of patients.
4. General surgery
Surgeons will see a handful of CPT changes this coming year that reflect advancements in surgical techniques and a need to improve reporting accuracy.
Deletions will include codes to report the size of the single largest intra-abdominal tumor or cyst (49203–49205), while additions will include new codes to report the excision or destruction of the total size of intra-abdominal tumors/cysts (49186–49190) along with those to reflect innovative approaches in skin grafts that promote wound healing (15011–15018).
5. Vaccines
CPT 2025 will be rolling out new codes that reflect innovations in preventing life-threatening diseases. Some of these codes took effect in 2024 but will not appear in the CPT code book until 2025. They include:
- 90593 — Chikungunya virus vaccine
- 90684 — Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine
- 90624 — Meningococcal pentavalent vaccine
- 90695 — Influenza virus vaccine (H5N8)
Improve your 2025 CPT management strategy
Despite the many challenges of managing standard code set updates and terminology mappings in-house, many health organizations continue to do so. This is a risky endeavor given that code crosswalks—the bridges used to connect data between two or more distinct systems—are inherently fragile and prone to failure.
Ensuring clinical terminology remains up-to-date and accurate is a costly and resource-intensive process. Each standardized code set, including CPT, follows its own update schedule, making it tough to keep pace with all the changes. Relying on outdated codes will hinder clinical documentation efforts and likely lead to claim denials and revenue-draining rework.
So, what are your options? The best solution here is simply to partner with experts in coding, terminology, and clinical informatics. Instead of burdening yourself with manual maintenance—risking a loss of specificity and compromising data quality—leave the hard work to someone else who not only knows exactly what they’re doing but enjoys it.
For an in-depth look at the 2025 CPT code set changes, watch IMO Health’s on-demand webinar, New year, new CPT® code set changes, featuring coding experts June Bronnert and Shelly L. Jude.
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