Will Humphreys and a co-speaker break down the January 2027 CPT code changes for speech-language pathology. Medicare guidance arrives July 2026, then Medicaid and insurers like Blue Cross and Aetna follow. Reimbursement will drop significantly, especially for 30-minute pediatric sessions.
If someone who's a PT, OT, or an SLP leader or, or business owner, what would you say the top 3 things they should be aware of right now? Obviously you can't share in great detail, but what would you say the top 3 things are they should be aware of with the most recent changes?
Yeah, I mean, I think number 1, just knowing that in January 2027 with the speech therapy CPT code changes coming, uh, you know, more information become available in July. We'll see what Medicare is going to do in terms of payment. Then how do you take what Medicare is doing with payment and kind of, kind of, quote, guesstimate what your state Medicaid is going to do, your Blue Cross, Aetna, Cigna, you know, how is that going to change all your reimbursement in 2027?
So it does change all the reimbursement across all the commercial payers as well. I think you're going to see significant decrease in reimbursement for—
because again, a lot of, you know, pediatric SLPs do 30-minute sessions.
Right.
So I think you're going to see that reimbursement for a 30-minute session decrease significantly. So how do you then plan for that when you're doing your 2027 budget? But also, how is that going to impact what you can pay an SLP or an SLP assistant if you're able to use them? So I think that's, you know, number one.
