Podiatry Coding & Billing Alert

Question: I just found out that CMS has a taxonomy of providers. What does this mean? Do we need a taxonomy code for our office?

Iowa Subscriber

Answer: Yes, you should have an appropriate taxonomy code for your office. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) categorizes providers by classification and specialty via 10-character alphanumeric identifiers. Any provider who wants to receive reimbursement from Medicare needs to have and know their taxonomy code — a provider must have this code in order to apply for a National Provider Identifier (NPI) code.

You can find the 10-character code for your particular classification and specialty at https://taxonomy.nucc.org/. It’s important to be as specific as possible in your search, because the taxonomy codes are very precise. For example, there are different codes for general practice podiatrists (213EG0000X), public medicine podiatrists (213EP0504X), and radiology podiatrists (213ER0200X), just to name a few.

These codes are usually updated in January and July, according to CMS.