Category III Codes Now Arrive Twice as Fast. Deletions Still Land January 1.

Category III is where a service that has no Category I code goes to get its first one. For a field about to lose both of its Category III codes on January 1, how fast that pipeline runs is not an abstract question.

It just got faster. The AMA's Early Release Schedule for Category III codes, updated August 7, 2026, sets a triannual cycle:

• Three early releases a year — April 1, July 1 and October 1 — rather than two.
• Each effective three months after release, not six. An April 1 release is effective July 1; July 1 is effective October 1; October 1 is effective January 1.

A code approved at the February Panel meeting used to wait the better part of a year to become billable. Under the published schedule it now releases April 1 and is effective July 1.

The transition year is lumpy, and October 1 is doing double duty

Read the 2026 rows carefully, because they do not follow the steady-state pattern. The schedule shows both the February 2026 and the May 2026 Panel meetings releasing on the same date — July 1, 2026 — and both effective October 1, 2026. Two cycles' worth of codes land on one day.

That same day, the September 2026 Panel meeting's codes go out as the next early release, effective January 1, 2027. So October 1 is simultaneously an effective date for one batch and a release date for another.

And it may not be October 1. The schedule carries a footnote: the release date “may be delayed by up to 10 days based on the date of the CPT Panel fall meeting.” Only the October release carries that caveat; April and July do not.

The turn: deletions did not get faster

The second footnote is the one worth sitting with. Codes approved for deletion

“are published annually with the full set of temporary codes for emerging technology, services, procedures, and service paradigms in the CPT code set. Deleted codes have an effective date of January 1.”

So the cycle is now asymmetric. A new Category III code can reach you in three months. A deleted one always goes away on January 1 and only on January 1, however long ago the Panel approved it.

For ABA that matters on a specific date. Both of this field's Category III codes, 0362T and 0373T, are deleted effective January 1, 2027 — and the Category I codes meant to absorb that work start the same day. The two events are locked to a single date by two different mechanisms, one of which has no flexibility in it at all. There is no staggered handover and no possibility of one arriving before the other.

The limits

This is a schedule, not a rule about coverage. Nothing here changes whether a payer recognizes a Category III code, and most do not recognize them automatically — Category III codes carry no RVUs, and payers price or decline them individually. A faster route to a code number is not a faster route to payment.

The schedule published on August 7 runs through the 2030 CPT cycle. It does not state that the cadence changed, which is a reading we have taken from the schedule's own structure against the AMA's description of a “triannual electronic release.” The AMA's Category III page carries the same August 7 date.

What you must know or do

• If you bill any Category III code, check its effective date against the new schedule rather than assuming January. The six-month assumption is what will catch people out: a code you expect to start in January may already have started in October.
• Do not plan the 0362T and 0373T transition around a grace period. Deletions take effect January 1 with no early-release mechanism and no staggering. The last date you can bill them and the first date the replacement exists are the same boundary.
• Watch for the October release to slip. Up to ten days, and only in October. If you are tracking a code for a service you already deliver, build that into whatever you have told your billing team.
• Do not read a release date as a coverage date. A Category III code exists once the AMA releases it. Whether your payers accept it is a separate conversation you have to open yourself, and it is the one that takes the time.