Difference Between CPT Codes & ICD-9 Codes

Medical billers and coders primarily use codes from two manuals: the "International Classification of Diseases (ICD)" manual and the "Current Procedural Terminology (CPT)" manual. These books contain thousands of numerical and alphanumerical codes to apply to insurance forms.

CPT Codes

The CPT book lists codes for reporting medical services and procedures, including diagnostic, laboratory, radiology, surgical and many others.

ICD Codes

The ICD manual includes codes that identify the particular diagnosis. These codes describe a disease or condition. The United States uses the ninth revision, or ICD-9, but many countries use the 10th revision.

Publishers

The CPT manual is published by the American Medical Association, while the ICD book is published by the World Health Organization.

Relationships

As many as four ICD-9 codes can be linked to one CPT code on a standard HCFA-1500 insurance claim form.

Number of Codes

The CPT manual has about 7,800 codes, compared with 24,000 in the ICD-9. The ICD-10 has more than 200,000 codes.

References

• Differences Between CPT and ICD-9 Codes

Resources

• Further Information on CPT and ICD Codes
• When will the U.S. Implement the ICD-10?

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