AMA updates nearly 300 telehealth codes for 2026

In September, the American Medical Association (AMA) announced updated telehealth code sets to the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) manual. The 288 additions, along with 84 deletions and 46 revisions, target medical, surgical, and diagnostic services effective January 1, 2026.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), whose advocacy work with the AMA helped incorporate some of these new services, the additions for behavioral health will include group psychotherapy, group caregiver behavior management/modification training, developmental testing services, psychological and neuropsychological testing evaluation services, and psychological and neuropsychological test administration and scoring services.

They will all be recognized and listed in Appendix P and T of the CPT manual.

“CPT is more than a set of billing codes. The CPT code set allows for the seamless flow of complex medical information across the entire health system and has a foundational role in research, analysis, and benchmarking of health care services and outcomes that promotes the delivery of high-quality care,” AMA President-elect Willie Underwood, III, MD, MSc, MPH, said in a statement.

“The health system increasingly relies on CPT to support a data infrastructure for value-based care adoption, preventive care access, and technological innovation acceleration.”

Since the pandemic’s initial shutdown in 2020, telehealth services allowed Medicare-enrolled clinicians to provide services from other locations outside of an office or hospital setting. Telehealth services may have lessened since then, but they are still a successful and often preferred method of healthcare.

The APA pointed out that these additions will help patients have more flexibility and access to care, particularly in rural, underserved, and vulnerable populations. The AMA stated that these codes are the “backbone of health data interoperability” and that without them as a “common language,” patient care would be less “accessible, accountable, and fairly supported across the nation’s health system.”

The big question is coverage—whether the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will implement these new codes as permanent and eliminate the “provisional telehealth services” designation.

That question was answered in November by CMS with its Medicare Physicians Fee Schedule 2026. In it, telehealth may continue but with a caveat. Healthcare professionals were “disallowed” to offer telehealth from home.

Practitioners, should they choose to continue from a different location, must separately enroll and bill from each place they provide telehealth. Critics say this just adds more paperwork to an already burdened administrative process. But many are pleased that at least telehealth was recognized as a viable healthcare method.

In mid-November, the federal government shutdown ended. With it came a continuing resolution that requires retroactive coverage for telehealth services rendered since October 1 that would be covered by Medicare under the COVID-era telehealth allowances. Additionally, it extends the flexibilities to January 30, 2026.

Kyle Zebley, executive director of ATA Action, the activist arm of the American Telehealth Association, said in a statement:

“This sends an important message to healthcare providers and patients, that our government leaders value telehealth and are committed to maintaining access to these urgently needed programs.” 

The January extensions include, among other things, the removal of geographic or originating-site restrictions, expanded eligible practitioners, a Federally Qualified Health Center or Rural Health Clinic telehealth authority, audio-only telehealth, and the delay of the in-person mental health requirement.

Zebley added, “We are doubling down on our efforts to work with Congress and the administration to secure a permanent solution—or at minimum a years-long extension—for these telehealth waivers. We cannot continue to subject patients across the nation, in rural and urban communities, managing chronic and acute conditions, to ongoing uncertainty about their care.”