Health Care Provider Taxonomy Code (HPTC) Requirements

60.6 - Health Care Provider Taxonomy Code (HPTC) Requirements (Rev. 10236, Issued: 07-31-2020, Effective: 08-31-2020, Implementation: 08-31-2020) Health Care Provider Taxonomy Codes (HPTC) are also called Specialty Codes. HPTCs are 9-digit identifiers assigned by the National Uniform Claim Committee (NUCC) to be used in HIPAA transactions. Contractors are required to validate the incoming HPTC against the most recent taxonomy code list. CMS will notify A/B MACs, their shared system maintainers, and CEDI (via Recurring Update Notification) to load the most recent HPTC code list into a contractor-controlled table. HPTCs may not be hard coded by the shared system maintainers. Contractor-controlled tables minimize the impact of future system updates. HPTCs are updated twice a year (tentatively October and April) by the NUCC and the updates are available for download in a portable document format (PDF) from the official Washington Publishing Company (WPC) website for no charge or an electronic representation of the list, which could facilitate loading of the codes, may be purchased from WPC on a subscription basis. Contractors are to use the most cost effective means to obtain the list for validation programming and updating purposes.