It's no secret that AMA CPT PLA made a half-dozen codes for whole-slide imaging 3 to 4 years ago, and then seemingly imposed a "moratorium" on more PLA codes based on WSI. There it sat for the past 2 years, since Summer 2024.
It's also no secret that last fall (public agendas and reports), the AMA CPT considered a MAAA application for WSI, and rejected that, too.
This just couldn't continue, as exciting things are happening with WSI and AI, even with "plain" H&E slides. See the new Nature Medicine paper by Li et al on predictions in lung cancer, here.
Last Week's AMA: H&E, WSI, AI, & Cat III
At last week's AMA CPT meeting, AMA had a long discussion and seemed prepared to accept WSI-AI services in the Category III category. Getting to that place was kind of dizzying, involving detours around whether H&E AI-based services were "codifiable," what AI services do and don't require physician work, and how evolving use of AI in digital pathology would intersect with a moving target, revisions to how CPT as a whole handles different types of AI services.
So the take home is: Look for AI & WSI distinct diagnostic services to land in Category III coding rules, for an indefinite time period.
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AMA Updates Confidentiality Interpretations
At last week's meeting, an hour was devoted to new AMA rules, including confidentiality/nondisclosure.
Some things are verboten:
You can't record the meeting. You can't take photos (or screenshots) of CPT text or other slides You can't type and replicate CPT codes shown on slides. You can't quote anybody's statements by name. You can't say whether any particular tabs (items) passed or failed the committee vote - although you probably wouldn't know, since those are secret silent electronic ballots.
However, AMA also discussed what is allowable.
You can repeat statements or positions voiced, as long as not identifiable to anyone. You can make comments based on your opinion (example; "I thought the discussion of Tab 105 went well.") Based on examples on slides and the AMA's discussion, I feel it was well within the statement boundaries to type my remarks above - letting us know that after a lot of debate and detours, the category of WSI AI seems to now fall in the domain of Category III.
