COVID Vaccine Coding Changes as of November 1, 2023
October 26th, 2023 - Wyn Staheli
Correctly coding the administration of COVID-19 vaccines had become such a huge burden for providers. You needed to know VERY specific information which required knowing detailed patient information that providers may not have had access to (e.g., which booster are they getting?). Back in August, the AMA announced that there would be significant changes to the codes, which should relieve that burden.
Now that the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) has ended, there is no longer the same need to track some of the same data that was necessary during the PHE. According to the AMA website the following changes are taking place (emphasis added):
- Adding new codes 91318-91322 for the new COVID-19 monovalent vaccine
- Kept code 91304 for Novavax’s currently authorized vaccine product and the updated (XBB.1.5) vaccine
- Deleted 64 existing COVID-19 vaccine codes (product and administration with associated guidelines and parenthetical note deletions/revisions)
- Revised 1 code (91304)
- Adding a single administration code (90480) for administration of new (i.e., 91318-91322) and existing (i.e., 91304) COVID-19 vaccine products
- Deleted Appendix Q — the table of all the vaccines and their associated administration codes
All those complicated CPT administration codes (those ending in “A”) that are no longer covered under an existing Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) will be deleted effective November. 1, 2023.
It is important to note that these changes will not be found in the soon-to-be released 2024 CPT codebook. You won’t see these changes in a book until the 2025 edition. However, they will be made available on the FindACode.com website beginning November 1, 2023 and will show up there automatically on the date they are effective so there is no need for existing customers to update anything except to make sure you are viewing the “current date”.
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