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By Kacie Geretz, Director of Growth Enablement
November 19, 2025
Key Takeaways: Healthcare organizations face 420 CPT code changes in 2025 and 418 in 2026, spanning telemedicine expansion, AI-augmented services, and surgical technique updates that directly impact billing accuracy and reimbursement. This article examines the most significant updates across evaluation and management, surgery, radiology, and pathology categories, revealing how autonomous medical coding solutions eliminate the administrative burden of implementing hundreds of annual coding guideline changes while maintaining compliance and accuracy.
Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes describe medical, surgical, and diagnostic procedures, documenting services provided and enabling billing and reimbursement. The American Medical Association (AMA) publishes regular CPT code updates to reflect advances in medical technology and healthcare delivery (1).
It's critical that healthcare organizations stay up to date on the latest CPT codes to ensure accurate reimbursement and avoid denied claims. With hundreds of codes updated every year — 420 in 2025 and 418 in 2026 — keeping up with these changes can be a big headache for healthcare organizations (2).
Nym's autonomous coding engine reduces this administrative burden, as Nym's compliance and clinical teams proactively implement coding guideline updates directly into the autonomous medical coding engine. Discover what you can expect from the 2025 and 2026 CPT code updates below.
What We Know About 2026 CPT Codes
There are three categories of CPT codes. Category I consists of the codes most commonly used by providers. Category II consists of supplemental tracking codes used for performance management. Category III consists of temporary codes used for emerging or experimental services or procedures (3).
In 2025, the AMA added 270 new codes, deleted 112, and revised 38. Category III CPT codes accounted for one-third of new codes (1). Some updates of note are as follows:
In terms of specialty, the main sections that saw updates were evaluation and management (E/M), surgery, and pathology. There were also some noteworthy updates relating to telemedicine (4).
Several coding categories saw substantial updates in 2025 that directly impact how providers document and bill for services. We've summarized some highlights below.
The E/M section of the 2025 CPT code added 17 new telemedicine codes (4). These codes now reflect the type of technology used (for example, visual and audio versus audio-only). Further, a subsection was created for telemedicine services within office visits and outpatient services (5).
The new telemedicine codes follow the same structure as existing E/M codes, allowing providers to select codes based on either medical decision-making or total time spent (4). Four complexity levels are available for new and established patients (5). One notable new code is 98016, for brief virtual check-ins with established patients that take only 5 to 10 minutes.
Surgery and radiology CPT codes saw significant changes in 2025, streamlining where possible and adding specificity as needed. Key consolidations include new code 25448 for carpometacarpal suspension arthroplasty, which eliminates previous redundant codes for thumb arthritis surgery (6).
Five new codes (49186–49190) replaced outdated tumor resection codes to better reflect modern techniques for intra-abdominal tumor removal, while codes 49203, 49204, and 49205 were deleted.
In radiology, six new MRI safety codes (76014–76019) were introduced to capture the assessment and preparation work required for patients with implanted devices or foreign bodies prior to MRI procedures. CPT codes for transcranial Doppler studies were also updated, with three new add-on codes for vasoreactivity studies, emboli detection, and venous-arterial shunt detection, while code 93890 was deleted and 93893 was revised (5).
Pathology and laboratory services also saw multiple CPT code updates. Notably, several proprietary laboratory analyses (PLA) codes were added to describe proprietary procedures provided by labs, such as genomic sequencing procedures. The code for genetic counseling 96040 was deleted and replaced by 96041, for example, while new codes were added for monoclonal antibody administration (6).
The expansion of such code sets reflects the increased activity in these novel areas of medicine. In fact, PLAs were assigned the largest proportion of new codes, comprising 37% of all additions in 2025 (1).
The AMA has already released the new CPT codes for 2026, which will take effect January 1, 2026. The latest updates speak to evolving healthcare innovations, including remote patient monitoring tools, AI and AI-augmented services, hearing devices, and leg revascularization approaches. There are 418 changes, with 288 new codes, 84 deletions, and 46 revisions (2).
The 2026 CPT code set will see five new codes for remote patient monitoring services, along with two codes for remote monitoring treatment management requiring only 10 minutes, compared to the previous 20-minute threshold (7). These updates reflect the new technologies that allow for patient monitoring/management outside of the traditional clinical setting.
Multiple codes have been added for augmentative AI services, such as AI-augmented coronary atherosclerotic plaque assessment, used to assess the severity of heart diseases. Further, 12 codes have been added to reflect new hearing device services, and the entire lower extremity revascularization section has been updated, with some old codes deleted and new ones added (7).
CPT codes help healthcare organizations keep track of services and procedures provided and are essential for accurate billing and reimbursement. Keeping up with the CPT code updates news is essential, as coding errors can lead to delayed reimbursement or, in the worst-case scenario, potential compliance issues.
Implementing new CPT codes gets easier with Nym, as the autonomous medical coding engine auto-updates CPT logic, alleviating the burden for health information management directors. The autonomous medical coding engine translates clinical notes to medical codes without any human intervention needed. Thanks to its ability to quickly scan large volumes of data, the AI tool can also detect errors and fix them before they lead to denied claims.
This guide to new CPT codes for 2026 provides only a high-level overview of the hundreds of changes healthcare organizations must be aware of. It's critical to stay current by reviewing the AMA documentation in full, training staff accordingly, and updating workflows as needed. Nym can also help ensure accuracy, as Nym's compliance and clinical teams implement coding guideline updates directly into the autonomous medical coding engine.
Nym makes clinical documentation more efficient and accurate. Plus, since AI-powered coding removes the need for human intervention, it adds a layer of privacy, protecting sensitive patient health information.
Discover how Nym can streamline coding and keep your healthcare organization compliant.
Kacie Geretz, RHIA, CPMA, CPC, CCA is the Director of Growth Enablement at Nym, where she aligns Nym’s product roadmap with the evolving needs of health system partners and serves as the externally-facing expert on Nym’s autonomous medical coding engine. A graduate of The Ohio State University’s Health Information Management program, Kacie brings deep expertise across the revenue cycle—having led revenue integrity programs, built managed care contracting and credentialing infrastructure, and driven denials and A/R process improvement initiatives. She is passionate about advancing healthcare automation and regularly shares insights on coding innovation and RCM transformation.
