CPT Code 99441: deleted in 2025 and what to bill instead

CPT Code 99441 is a deleted code. The AMA removed the telephone evaluation and management family, 99441 through 99443, from the CPT code set effective January 1, 2025.

No reversal has followed through 2026, and CMS never created a replacement HCPCS code. If 99441 is still sitting in a charge template, every claim that carries it comes back rejected. The message reads as an invalid procedure code rather than a coverage denial.

Code 98016 is the closest match to the old 5 to 10 minute call, and Medicare pays it. Longer audio-only visits map to 98008-98015, or to an office E/M code with modifier 93 for Medicare. This guide covers what 99441 described, what replaced it, and how to bill each case.

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Key takeaways

CPT Code 99441 no longer exists. The AMA deleted 99441, 99442, and 99443 effective January 1, 2025. A claim carrying 99441 for a 2025 or later date of service is rejected as an invalid code.

Code 98016 is the closest replacement. It covers the same 5 to 10 minutes of medical discussion with an established patient, and it takes over from HCPCS G2012.

98016 is also the one new telemedicine code Medicare pays. CMS gave 98000 through 98015 status indicator I, which means invalid for Medicare purposes.

Longer audio-only visits map to 98008-98011 for new patients and 98012-98015 for established patients. Medicare instead wants an office E/M code, 99202-99215, with modifier 93 and place of service 10.

Practice management software like Pabau holds the current code set in shared charge templates and captures call duration at the point of care. Claims route through the Claim.MD clearinghouse before a deleted code reaches a payer.

Is CPT Code 99441 still billable?

No. CPT 99441 was deleted on January 1, 2025, along with 99442 and 99443. A deleted code is not the same as a non-covered code. It has been removed from the code set entirely, so no payer can adjudicate it and no contract can bring it back.

That distinction decides how you fix the problem. A non-covered code produces a denial you might appeal. A deleted code produces a front-end rejection from the clearinghouse or the payer edit engine, and there is nothing to appeal. The claim has to be rebuilt with a code that exists.

Sources do not disagree on this point, whatever older billing articles suggest. The AAPC Codify entry for 99441 now sits on a deleted-code page and reads as deleted effective January 1, 2025.

Noridian is the Medicare Administrative Contractor most often cited on the other side of that argument. Its own 2025 telehealth E/M guidance says the same thing.

Claims for dates of service on or before December 31, 2024 are the one exception. If your team is still working an old accounts receivable balance, 99441 remains the correct code for that date of service. The payer timely filing limit still applies.

What CPT Code 99441 used to describe

Until the end of 2024, CPT 99441 covered a telephone evaluation and management service of 5 to 10 minutes. A physician or other qualified healthcare professional (QHP) had to provide it to an established patient, parent, or guardian.

The table below records the code as it stood, which helps when you are reconciling older claims or reading a payer policy nobody has refreshed.

Source: American Medical Association CPT code set, CY2025 changes, cross-checked against the AAPC Codify CPT lookup.

What replaced 99441, 99442, and 99443?

The CPT Editorial Panel built a new telemedicine E/M section, 98000 through 98016, for CY2025. Codes 98000 through 98007 cover audio-video visits. Codes 98008 through 98015 cover audio-only visits and are the successors to the deleted telephone codes. Code 98016 covers a brief check-in and takes over from HCPCS G2012.

Two changes go beyond the numbers. Audio-only visits are now available for new patients, which the telephone codes never allowed. Level selection also follows medical decision making or total time, the same way an office visit does. A single duration band no longer decides it.

Codes 98008 through 98015 all require more than 10 minutes of medical discussion. A shorter call falls to 98016, or to no separately reportable service at all. CPT Code 99442 covers the same deletion from the 11 to 20 minute end of the old family.

Why 98016 is the closest replacement for 99441

99441 differs from the rest of the deleted family in one way that matters. Its 5 to 10 minute band falls below the threshold for every code in the 98008-98015 range, so the obvious crosswalk does not work. The short call maps instead to 98016, the brief virtual check-in code.

That turns out to be good news for Medicare billing. Code 98016 is the one member of the new telemedicine family that CMS pays. It replaces the HCPCS check-in code G2012, which Medicare had already adopted. A practice that used 99441 mostly for short patient-initiated calls therefore has the cleanest migration of anyone in this code family.

The rules that governed 99441 carried over almost intact. A check-in tied to a related E/M service in the previous 7 days is still bundled. So is one that leads to a visit or procedure within the next 24 hours, or at the soonest available appointment.

How Medicare wants audio-only visits billed

Medicare does not accept the new audio-only E/M codes. CMS assigned 98000 through 98015 a status indicator of I, which means invalid for Medicare purposes. CMS treats the family as duplicative of the office visit codes it already pays for, so it kept practices on the existing E/M set.

For a Medicare audio-only encounter longer than a check-in, report a standard office or other outpatient E/M code, 99202 through 99215. Pick the level the visit supports. Append modifier 93 to show the service was audio-only. Use place of service 10 when the patient is at home, which is the usual case for a phone visit.

• 98016 is the exception: CMS adopted the brief check-in code, which pays and takes over from HCPCS G2012 for a 5 to 10 minute call.
• Do not submit 98008-98015 to Medicare: a status indicator of I produces a rejection, not a reduced payment.
• Do not submit 99441-99443 to any payer for a 2025 or later date of service, because the codes no longer exist.
• Medicare Advantage varies: plans set their own telehealth benefit, so a plan may accept 98012-98015 even though traditional Medicare does not.
• Check the fee schedule each year: the CMS Physician Fee Schedule lookup tool returns locality-specific amounts for 98016 and for the office E/M codes.

Rates are never a single national figure. Payment is built from relative value units, then adjusted by the geographic practice cost indices for your locality. The amount on your remittance advice depends on where you practice. The AAFP guidance on audio-only and virtual visits is a useful framework, but the authoritative payment data sits in the CMS fee schedule.

Commercial and Medicaid payer policies

Commercial payers split three ways on the new audio-only codes. Some adopted 98012 through 98015 on schedule and pay them as ordinary E/M services. Some rejected the family the way Medicare did and want an office E/M code with a telemedicine modifier. Others accept the codes but price them below the equivalent in-person visit.

State Medicaid programs vary just as widely, and several updated their fee schedules part-way through 2025 rather than on January 1. Telehealth parity laws add another layer, because a mandate to cover audio-only care does not oblige a plan to pay it at the in-person rate.

Before you bill an audio-only visit to any non-Medicare payer, check three points. Does the plan recognize 98008 through 98016? Which modifier and place of service does it expect? And what does it pay relative to the in-person visit?

Record those answers per payer. That grid is what stops the same rejection repeating next quarter.

Who can bill audio-only E/M services?

Physicians and other qualified healthcare professionals who report E/M services independently may bill audio-only visits. That covers physicians (MD/DO), nurse practitioners, and physician assistants, within state scope of practice and each payer credentialing rule.

Incident-to billing does not apply, because the patient is not physically in the office. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants bill under their own NPI for these encounters. State supervision requirements still differ, so confirm your own state rules before a clinician bills independently.

• Eligible billers: physicians (MD/DO), NPs, PAs, and other QHPs credentialed to report E/M services on their own.
• Clinical staff calls: a check-in handled entirely by a nurse or medical assistant does not support 98016, which is a QHP service.
• Patient type: new patients now qualify under 98008-98011, which the deleted telephone codes never allowed.
• Who starts the call: 98016 still has to be patient-initiated, while the 98008-98015 visits follow the usual E/M rules.
• Billing identity: each clinician bills under their own NPI, with no incident-to option.

Documentation requirements for audio-only E/M visits

Documentation is the second most common denial trigger for audio-only claims, after code selection. The record has to support the level billed and show that the encounter genuinely happened by phone. A note reading “patient called with questions” supports no code at all.

• Start and end time of the call: record the exact times the medical discussion began and ended. An entry like “approximately 8 minutes” will not support a time-based code.
• Modality: state plainly that the encounter was audio-only, and note why video was not used.
• Patient location: record where the patient was during the call, since place of service depends on it.
• Patient identity and status: confirm you spoke to the patient or their legal representative, and whether they are new or established.
• Who initiated contact: note that the patient asked for the call, which 98016 still requires.
• Medical decision making: document the presenting problem, the data reviewed, and the risk, so an auditor can see the level you billed.
• The 7-day and 24-hour check: note that no related E/M service occurred in the previous 7 days and that no visit follows within 24 hours.
• Consent: record the patient verbal agreement to a telemedicine encounter where your state or payer requires it.
• Provider name and NPI, assessment and plan: the rendering clinician plus a brief note on what you concluded and what happens next.

Complete notes also feed accurate superbills, which your billing team or software can turn straight into clean claims. When the note carries every required element, the biller has less to chase before submission.

Modifiers and place of service for audio-only claims

Modifier choice now carries more weight than it did under 99441. The same office E/M code can describe an in-person visit, a video visit, or a phone call. The modifier is what tells the payer which one happened.

Place of service belongs in the same check, and it reflects where the patient was, not where the clinician sat. Medicare expects POS 10 for a patient at home and POS 02 for a patient at another site, and the two pay differently.

Leaving POS as 11 for the office is still one of the most common technical rejections on a telemedicine claim.

Mapping the deleted telephone codes to current codes

Teams rebuilding their templates usually want a one-to-one crosswalk. There is no official one, because the old codes were purely time-based and the new ones are not. The table below is a practical mapping, with the Medicare alternative alongside.

Treat the third column as a default rather than a rule. Level selection under 98008 through 98015 follows medical decision making or total time. A 15-minute call about a complex problem can support a higher code than the old band suggests.

Only the 99441 row is a tidy swap, because 98016 keeps the same 5 to 10 minute band. Two questions settle every other case. How long did the call run, and which payer receives the claim?

Common denial reasons and how to avoid them

Most audio-only rejections in 2025 and 2026 trace back to a code set that was never updated. Good denial management starts with knowing which errors appear most often. From there you can build upstream checks that catch them before submission.

The CARC and RARC reason codes attached to telemedicine rejections are covered in our guide to common denial codes. Review your remittance data against it after each claim cycle, so a recurring code-set error shows up in weeks rather than quarters.

ICD-10 codes commonly billed with audio-only E/M visits

The diagnosis has to support the medical necessity of the encounter, and that requirement did not change when the procedure codes did. The diagnosis must also reflect what the call covered, not a chronic condition that happens to sit in the chart. Below are the diagnoses seen most often on audio-only claims across primary care and common specialties.

Two of those rows catch people out. The parent code M54.5 is no longer billable, so the claim needs M54.50, M54.51, or M54.59. M79.1 covers muscle pain at an unspecified site, so switch to M25.5- when the pain sits in a joint.

Check current status and required specificity in the CDC ICD-10-CM web tool before you pair a diagnosis with any audio-only code. The diagnosis also has to be documented at the time of the call, not back-filled from the chart.

How practice management software keeps your code set current

A code deletion is a workflow problem before it is a billing problem. A clinician picks a saved favorite, the charge posts, and nobody sees the rejection for a week. By then the same code has gone out on every other call that week.

Practice management software like Pabau closes that loop where the charge is created. The shared charge templates behind cleaner claims management hold only current procedure codes, so retiring 99441 once removes it for everyone.

Documentation templates for phone visits prompt clinicians to record exact call start and end times, patient location, and modality. Those three fields decide the code, the modifier, and the place of service.

Claims then route through the integrated Claim.MD clearinghouse, which scrubs for missing modifiers and mismatched identifiers before the payer sees them. An omitted modifier 93 would otherwise cost a full claim cycle. You get fewer first-pass rejections and less rework, so your billers spend their time on appeals worth making.

Stop billing retired telephone codes

Pabau keeps your procedure codes current and captures call duration and patient location at the point of care. Claims route through the Claim.MD clearinghouse, so a deleted code like 99441 never reaches a payer.

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Conclusion

CPT Code 99441 is gone, and the fix is mechanical rather than clinical. Remove 99441 through 99443 from every template, then send short patient-initiated calls as 98016. Longer established-patient calls map to 98012 through 98015, or to an office E/M code with modifier 93 and place of service 10 for Medicare.

Practices that leaned on 99441 for quick check-ins get the easiest migration in this family. Code 98016 keeps the same time band, and Medicare pays it. The bigger risk sits in the template nobody refreshed, which surfaces as a rejection queue three weeks later.

Pabau keeps the code set, the documentation prompts, and the clearinghouse connection in one workflow, so the next annual CPT update lands in your templates. To see how that works on your own charge sheet, book a demo with the Pabau team.

Continue your research

Billing the 11 to 20 minute call? CPT Code 99442 covers the same 2025 deletion from the middle of the telephone code family.

Need the Medicare office E/M level? CPT Code 99213 explains the level most audio-only established-patient visits land on.

Want to cut first-pass rejections? Clean claim submission guide covers the data elements that stop a claim failing at the front end.

Unsure what a clearinghouse actually checks? Medical claims clearinghouse explains the scrubbing that catches an invalid code before the payer does.

Tracking denials systematically? Denial management in healthcare walks through appeal workflows and CARC code interpretation.

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