The American Psychiatric Association provides a two-page resource discussing procedure coding for smoking cessation counseling.

There are a number of different procedure codes that can be used to describe services provided to encourage changes in behavior of individuals who use tobacco.

The resource identifies the CPT and HCPCS codes that describe smoking/tobacco cessation counseling, as well as reporting requirements.

It is important to note that coverage of individual codes by Medicare differs from that of commercial payers, which is dependent on individual payer policy.

Access the APA’s article on smoking cessation counseling coding (pdf).

For more information, you can view the MLN Matters article on “Counseling to Prevent Tobacco Use” (pdf).

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