AMA announces new "Center for Digital Health and AI" on October 20. According to STAT,
- The American Medical Association on Monday announced a new Center for Digital Health and AI to influence how novel technology is used and regulated in health care.
- The center is one of the first major initiatives from CEO John Whyte, who took the helm of the physician lobbying group earlier this year after seven years as the chief medical officer of WebMD. Whyte told STAT he plans to spend millions of dollars on the new center and is now commencing a search for a new senior vice president to lead the effort.
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On a more pedestrian level:
AMA has a 39-page book on coding digital medicine, scenarios for physicians. Tag line: "Master the appropriate use of digital medicine CPT codes effortlessly."
See's the October 10, 2025, AMA announcement regarding several aspects of digital medicine:
Find the ebook's home page here:
Shortcut to the PDF book here:
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AI CORNER
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Here’s a concise blog-ready summary for your readers:
AMA’s New Handbook on Digital Medicine Coding
The American Medical Association has released a 39-page handbook titled Digital Medicine Clinical Scenarios: Coding Handbook (March 2025), offering physicians a practical, example-driven guide to applying CPT® codes for digital health encounters. The document walks readers through 14 real-world scenarios—ranging from video and audio-only telehealth visits to remote monitoring, chronic care management, and interprofessional e-consults—clarifying which codes, modifiers, and place-of-service designations apply in each case.
The handbook is especially valuable because 2025 introduces major new CPT telemedicine codes (98000-98016) that distinguish between synchronous audio-video, audio-only, and brief technology-based services. Notably, CMS has not yet adopted these codes for payment, meaning physicians will need to navigate divergent AMA and Medicare policies while confirming payer-specific guidance.
The guide also includes a taxonomy of digital-medicine services—from clinician-to-patient and clinician-to-clinician interactions to remote physiologic and therapeutic monitoring and algorithmic diagnostics—making it one of the clearest snapshots of how digital care is now represented in CPT.
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AMA home page: Digital Medicine Coding Handbook
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Direct PDF link: Download the 39-page handbook
Would you like me to add a short “why it matters” paragraph—e.g., implications for digital pathology, AI diagnostics, or genomics testing workflows—to make it fit more seamlessly with your blog’s theme?
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AMA’s New Handbook on Digital Medicine Coding
The American Medical Association has released a 39-page handbook titled Digital Medicine Clinical Scenarios: Coding Handbook (March 2025), a practical guide for physicians applying CPT® codes to the rapidly expanding field of digitally enabled care. It walks through 14 detailed scenarios—video and audio telehealth visits, remote monitoring, therapeutic tracking, and interprofessional e-consults—showing which codes, modifiers, and place-of-service designations apply.
This edition matters because 2025 introduces an entirely new CPT series (98000–98016) for synchronous audio-video, audio-only, and brief technology-based encounters. The catch: CMS has not yet adopted these for payment, so physicians must juggle dual frameworks—AMA’s CPT guidance and Medicare’s continuing reliance on older in-person visit codes with modifiers.
For innovators in digital pathology, AI diagnostics, genomics, and remote physiologic testing, the handbook signals how the coding ecosystem is catching up with hybrid care. It clarifies how digital tools—algorithms, connected devices, or asynchronous image review—map into CPT structure. In that sense, it’s not just a coding manual but a policy weather vane: an early look at how AMA and CMS may eventually reconcile definitions of “telehealth,” “monitoring,” and “algorithmic interpretation.”
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Key Takeaways for Innovators
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The CPT framework is finally catching up to the realities of hybrid and data-driven care. The 98000-series codes formally recognize digital encounters as distinct from in-person visits—an important conceptual shift that lays groundwork for AI- and software-mediated care models.
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CMS is lagging—but watching closely. For now, Medicare still requires billing under legacy E/M codes with modifiers, but the AMA’s structure shows what future CMS telehealth adoption may look like once utilization and cost data mature.
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A roadmap for AI and digital diagnostics. The taxonomy in Appendix R explicitly accommodates autonomous and algorithmic diagnostic services (e.g., CPT 92229 for AI retinopathy screening, multianalyte assays with algorithmic analyses). It previews how machine learning, digital pathology, and genomic interpretation tools can be positioned within CPT’s existing logic—turning “AI output” into a billable clinical act.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has announced a major new initiative — the Center for Digital Health and AI — intended to shape how emerging technologies are used and regulated in health care. The effort is among the first major projects launched by new AMA CEO John Whyte, who previously served as chief medical officer of WebMD. Whyte said that the AMA plans to invest millions of dollars and is already searching for a senior vice president to lead the center. He describes its mission as broad: to provide thought leadership, education and training, and to serve as a convener of stakeholders across medicine, government, and technology. Within the first year, Whyte expects the center to issue reports on how both physicians and consumers view these new tools, and to participate in benchmarking discussions with regulators on what “the right amount of regulation” might look like.
A central tenet of the AMA’s philosophy is that artificial intelligence should augment physicians rather than replace them. Whyte repeatedly uses the organization’s preferred term, “augmented intelligence,” to underscore that distinction. He envisions systems that collate and present data in meaningful ways and perhaps offer preliminary insights—but always under the oversight of a clinician. Tools that act autonomously or deliver diagnoses directly to patients, he warns, create unacceptable risks of harm. As an example, he notes that if an AI system can help radiologists detect tumors more accurately on mammograms, it should become part of standard practice—so long as the human professional remains in charge. “I’m not replacing the radiologist in any way,” he says. “I’m helping them do a better job.”
At present, many digital health applications focus on what Whyte calls “back-office” functions—AI scribes, scheduling, or billing—but he argues that the real promise of AI lies in clinical decision-making and therapeutic guidance. He imagines a future where community oncologists routinely use AI tools to confirm or refine treatment plans, ensuring that every cancer patient effectively receives a second opinion. These are the kinds of high-impact uses, he says, that deserve more public attention and thoughtful implementation.
The AMA’s role will not be limited to education and ethics; it also extends into coding and reimbursement, areas where the organization already wields significant influence. The AMA’s CPT Editorial Panel is currently developing a framework for “algorithmic and AI-enabled clinical services” that do not require direct physician work, such as automated interpretation of lab data or imaging. Whyte acknowledges that regulators and payers remain uncertain about how to classify and pay for such technologies—many are new, and their appropriate use is not yet fully understood—but he sees the AMA as uniquely positioned to bring together regulators, clinicians, and industry to work through these challenges constructively.
Whyte is also mindful of the political cross-currents surrounding AI oversight. The launch of the new center comes as the Trump administration has criticized the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) for being too industry-driven. Whyte agrees that regulators should ensure no single set of companies has undue influence, but he is not worried about the AMA becoming a political target. The association, he insists, has no financial stake in the technologies themselves, only a professional and ethical stake in how they are used. “When people are invested in those things,” he told STAT, “then you do have to be concerned about a regulatory perspective. I think the administration is taking a reasonable approach in looking at that.”
When asked about the risks of AI adoption, Whyte’s greatest concern is that patients will begin to rely on tools such as chatbots for diagnosis and treatment advice without any physician oversight. In his view, this trend could lead to misdiagnosis, confusion, and poor outcomes. Even in seemingly harmless contexts, people can lose track of whether they are speaking to a person or an algorithm; he jokes that he himself was uncertain when chatting with an airline’s virtual assistant. The line between convenience and confusion, he suggests, is far thinner in medical contexts than most assume.
Ultimately, the new AMA center reflects a recognition that AI is already embedded in health care, and the question is no longer whether to adopt it but how to integrate it safely, effectively, and fairly. The AMA intends to position physicians at the center of that process—balancing innovation with responsibility, and ensuring that the technology enhances, rather than undermines, the human relationship between doctor and patient.
