The beginning of a new year is right around the corner and with every new year, CPT introduces new codes. Pay special attention to codes in the CPT book that have a red dot or blue triangle by the code. Also, coding guidelines that are in green text contain new or revised information.

There are 420 overall updates in the CPT 2025 code set, including 270 new codes, 112 deletions, and 38 revisions. The CPT code set continues to expand in new areas of medicine with proprietary laboratory analyses assigned to the largest proportion of new codes (37%), mostly for novel genetic testing. Category III CPT codes for emerging medical services accounted for about a third of new codes (30%).

A few changes physician should be aware of include:

In the E/M section, descriptors for telephone services codes (99441-99443) were deleted and a new family of codes was created for telemedicine services that includes synchronous audio-video E/M for new patients (98000-98003) and established patients (98004-98007) and synchronous audio-only E/M for new patients (98008-98011) and established patients (90012-90015). A new code, 90016, was introduced for virtual check-in visits.

Remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM) services were editorially revised. 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.

The AI Taxonomy  introduced in 2023 has been implemented in category III CPT codes to classify AI medical services and procedures as assistive, augmentative, or autonomous based on the work performed by the AI application on behalf of the physician or other qualified health care professional (QHP).