CPT Code Section Reference

Browse CPT code sections: E&M, Surgery, Radiology, Pathology

Reference guide to the six Category I CPT code sections and their numeric ranges used in US medical billing, with a 5-digit code-to-section lookup. Covers Anesthesia, Surgery, Radiology, Pathology, Medicine and E&M.

CPT code section reference

Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes describe the medical, surgical and diagnostic services a provider performs. They are maintained by the American Medical Association and used across US billing. Category I codes are five digits and grouped into six sections; Category II (suffix F) and Category III (suffix T) cover performance tracking and emerging technology. This tool lists every section with its numeric range and resolves any code to its section.

How it works

A Category I CPT code is a five-digit number. Each section owns a contiguous numeric block — for example Radiology is 70010-79999 and Pathology and Laboratory is 80047-89398. To classify a code, the lookup parses the digits and finds the block they fall in. Evaluation and Management (E&M) is a special case: its codes (99202-99499) sit inside the same 99xxx space as the Medicine section and the Anesthesia qualifying-circumstances add-ons (99100-99140), so the lookup reports every section a number can belong to.

Codes ending in F are Category II tracking codes; codes ending in T are Category III temporary codes. The lookup detects those suffixes directly.

Tips and notes

  • The codebook conventionally prints E&M first even though Surgery (10004-69990) is the largest section and the lowest non-anesthesia numbers.
  • Two-digit CPT modifiers (e.g. -25, -59) are appended with a hyphen and are not part of the base section ranges shown here.
  • Category II codes are optional and never used for payment; Category III codes may later be promoted to Category I. Always confirm against the current AMA CPT manual before billing.