Current Procedural Terminology

One positive advancement for pharmacy is that Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes have been developed specifically for MTM services provided by pharmacists. These codes are a standard used within health care to bill for goods and services. Separate codes have been developed for an initial encounter of 15 minutes of MTM service for a new patient (99605), initial encounter of 15 minutes of MTM service for an established patient (99606), and additional 15-minute increments (99607). While there has yet to be widespread use of these CPT codes by pharmacists, it is anticipated that their use will increase as plans implement MTM services involving pharmacists (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, 2007). 

CPT-4 Current Procedural Terminology plus HCPCS Health Care Financing Administration Common Procedure Coding System... 

Physician s Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) list of medical services and procedures performed by physicians and other providers. Each service and/or procedure is identified by its own unique 5-digit code. CPT has become the health care industry s standard for reporting of physician procedures and services, thereby providing an effective method of nationwide communication. 

A variety of controlled vocabiilary codes can be used in some sources for more precise search results. Examples include the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), healthcare common procediire coding system (HCPCS), current procediiral terminology (CPT), Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System (UMDNS), and the International Classification of Disease (ICD). However, it is not always easy to determine which information soimce uses which code, if any, and which procedure or disease state the codes cover. 

Practical suggestions how to apply this procedure to the current terminology are shown on the DevTox Web site project (18). 

The way the potential pulses are imposed on the electrode defines the voltam-metric technique. There are many waveforms and procedures for current measuring published in the literature. Very often they differ in details. On the other hand, the same technique may be implemented in a slightly different way in various polaro-graphs/voltammographs. The reader may also be confused by the manuals of various instrumentation makers, since the terminology is not ideally fixed. In this chapter the most popular and significant pulse techniques are discussed. Square-wave voltammetry, due to its specific character, is discussed in a separate chapter. 

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