π In This Article
Overview of 2025 ICD-10-CM Changes
The FY2025 ICD-10-CM update (effective October 1, 2024) included 395 new codes, 25 revised codes, and 13 deleted codes. While every practice will not be affected by every change, the most impactful updates occur across cardiology, diabetes, cancer, and mental health coding.
Key Changes for Primary Care
New specificity requirements for certain chronic conditions mean practices must review their standard coding templates. Key changes affecting family medicine and internal medicine include expanded options for coding type 2 diabetes with specific cardiovascular complications and new codes for long COVID sequelae that provide better specificity for reporting post-acute conditions.
Key Changes for Mental Health
Behavioral health practices should review updates to the substance use disorder and anxiety disorder code sets, which received new codes to better differentiate severity levels. Documentation of severity specifiers in physician notes becomes increasingly important as ICD-10 expands code specificity in these categories.
Key Changes for Surgery and Oncology
Surgical practices should review updates to traumatic injury codes and neoplasm table additions. Cancer coders should review new primary malignancy codes for specific tumor types that previously required combination coding approaches.
How to Implement Code Updates
- Download the updated tabular list and index from CMS (available each August)
- Compare to previous year's codes used in your superbills/charge capture
- Update EHR diagnosis code lists to remove deleted codes
- Brief coding staff and providers on key changes in your specialty
- Audit OctoberβDecember claims for proper use of new codes
How Virtual Coders Stay Current
Our virtual coders receive annual training on all ICD-10-CM updates before the October 1 effective date. We proactively update our coding workflows and provide practices with change summaries relevant to their specialty.