Not-Otherwise-Classified (NOC) Codes – 5010 Requirement Change

Date: 1/30/12

Effective Monday, January 16, 2012, Medicare Fee-for Service (FFS) has revised the Not-Otherwise-Classified (NOC) code listings.

A couple of changes to make note of:

• Anesthesia codes that include the phrase “not otherwise specified” in their code descriptors (procedure codes 00100 through 01996) do not meet the criteria of a non-specified procedure code and do not require a description to be supplied in the SV101-7/SV202-7 data elements.
• Anesthesia procedure code 01999, “Unlisted anesthesia procedure(s)” meets the requirements of a non-specified code and continues to require additional information to be supplied in the SV101-7 data element.
• Various pathology and laboratory codes identified in procedure code section 8800 and a variety of other NOC codes have been removed.

Most of procedure codes affected and taken off the NOC code list are anesthesia codes, laboratory/pathology codes, and Physicians Quality Reporting System codes.

For a complete listing of Medicare FFS’s NOC codes visit

http://www.CMS.gov/ElectronicBillingEDITrans/40_FFSEditing.asp.  Medicare will be updating the code set, at minimum, on a quarterly basis (January, April, July, and October) as the NOC list is refined and the parent code sets are updated.  Please check back to the website frequently for the most updated list.