CPT stands for Current Procedural Terminology, which is a medical code set used to report medical, surgical, and diagnostic procedures and services to entities such as physicians, health insurance companies, and accreditation organizations. CPT codes are used to describe medical procedures and services, and they provide a uniform language for coding medical services and procedures to streamline reporting, increase accuracy, and efficiency. They are also used for administrative management purposes such as claims processing and developing guidelines for medical care review.

CPT codes are created and maintained by the American Medical Association (AMA) . The AMA is responsible for all decisions for additions, deletions, or revisions of the CPT codes. The development and management of the CPT code set rely on a rigorous, transparent, and open process led by the CPT Editorial Panel. This process ensures clinically valid codes are issued, updated, and maintained on a regular basis to accurately reflect current clinical practice and innovation in medicine.

There are three types of CPT codes: Category 1, Category 2, and Category 3. Category 1 codes represent existing services or procedures widely used and, when appropriate, approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) . Category 2 codes are supplemental tracking codes used to collect data related to quality of care. Category 3 codes are temporary tracking codes for new and emerging technologies to allow data collection and assessment of new services and procedures.

CPT codes are made up of five characters, most of which are numeric, but some codes have a fifth alpha character. The AMA updates CPT nomenclature, or medical language, to reflect advances in medicine. Although the AMA owns the copyright to CPT, it invites providers and organizations to participate in the ongoing maintenance of the code set, welcoming those who use it to suggest changes to codes and code descriptors.