Article archive / October 1, 2012
Originally published: . Volume 4, No. 2. Source pages: 5.
The Government Relations Staff of the American Psychological Association sent a notice to members on September 13, 2012 alerting practitioners that CPT code numbers for psychotherapy would be changing for January 1, 2013.
The notice pointed out that this change is a result of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Five-Year Review of psychotherapy codes. The review was conducted by the American Medical Association.
APA had represented psychologists in this activity for a number of years, said the memo.
Also, the authors noted that the 2013 Medicare reimbursement rates would be released in November.
The memo explained that the actual changes would be small; such as the most commonly use code (90806) will change to 90834. But the fundamental services underlying the codes will remain the same. Instead of ranges of time, such as 20 to 30 minutes, the times will be fixed and not a range.
The memo said that the code numbers for psychoanalysis, family psychotherapy, multi- family group psychotherapy, and group psychotherapy would not change.
The authors said that they would provide members with more information and resources over the next months.
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