The November 2018 Compliance Matters column titled "Understanding the CPT Process"1 presented an overview of how Current Procedure Terminology (CPT©) codes are developed, approved, adopted, valued, modified, and deleted. Understanding the codes, what they represent, and how precisely they do or don’t translate into actual payment is an important aspect of physical therapist practice.
Now it’s time to take a closer look at some specific codes describing services provided by physical therapists (PTs) and physical therapist assistants (PTAs).
CPT coding is the uniform language employed by physicians and other qualified health care professionals to report the services or procedures they provide to patients. Although some CPT codes are used more frequently by certain providers than by others, codes are not intended to be discipline- or specialty- specific. Still, in some circumstances a code’s use may be limited to a specific type of health professional or setting. In those cases, such guidance is included in the code description.