MedlinePlus Connect Supports CPT Requests

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is pleased to announce that MedlinePlus Connect now supports CPT® (Current Procedural Terminology) queries. Upon receiving a request containing a CPT® code, MedlinePlus Connect returns relevant health information about medical procedures from MedlinePlus and other NIH Institutes and Centers.

CPT® responses are now available for hundreds of the most frequently used medical procedures. NLM plans to increase the number of medical procedure codes MedlinePlus Connect can respond to in the future by expanding the number of CPT® codes mapped to MedlinePlus pages and by developing new content in response to users' information needs.

MedlinePlus Connect is an NLM service for patient portals and electronic health record (EHR) systems to link to patient-friendly and context-relevant information. It responds to code-based requests and delivers information for patients that relates to a specific diagnosis, medication, lab test, or medical procedure.

CPT®, produced by the American Medical Association, is the seventh standardized medical code system to be accepted by MedlinePlus Connect. Other accepted code systems include ICD-9-CM, ICD-10-CM, SNOMED CT for diagnoses, NDCs (National Drug Codes) and RxCUIs (RxNorm Concept Unique Identifiers) for medications, and LOINC for medical tests.

Please see our documentation pages for information on using CPT® and other code systems with our Web application or Web service. Also, you can see how MedlinePlus Connect responds to CPT® codes by using the Web application demonstration page and the Web service demonstration page.