Summary & Overview
CPT 95810: Polysomnography with Sleep Staging and Multi-Parameter Monitoring
Headline: CPT 95810: Comprehensive Attended Polysomnography for Diagnostic Sleep Evaluation
Lead: CPT 95810 is the standard code for attended, in-lab polysomnography that includes sleep staging plus four or more additional physiologic parameters. It is widely used in the diagnosis and characterization of complex sleep disorders and plays a central role in guiding treatment decisions such as positive airway pressure therapy and evaluation of central or complex sleep apnea.
What this code represents and why it matters: CPT 95810 captures comprehensive, technologist-attended overnight sleep testing in a sleep laboratory. Nationally, it is a key diagnostic procedure in sleep medicine because it provides multi-parameter physiologic data needed to confirm diagnoses, quantify severity, and document treatment response. The presence of an attended technologist and multiple monitoring channels distinguishes it from less comprehensive studies.
Key payers covered: This summary addresses coverage considerations and common billing contexts for Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Health, UnitedHealthcare, and Medicare.
What readers will learn: The publication outlines coding and billing context for CPT 95810, clarifies its clinical role alongside related polysomnography codes, and summarizes common operational and documentation checkpoints that affect reimbursement and appropriate use. It also highlights typical site-of-service considerations for facility-based sleep laboratory testing and notes when supporting clinical indications are commonly required.
Note: Data not available in the input for payer-specific rates or utilization benchmarks.
CPT Code Overview
CPT 95810 describes polysomnography with sleep staging and four or more additional physiological parameters, performed with a technologist in attendance. This test evaluates sleep architecture and physiologic variables during a full overnight study to assess a range of sleep disorders.
Service type: Sleep Medicine Testing / Polysomnography
Typical site of service: Sleep laboratory (facility-based) — for example, place of service 22 or 11 depending on setting.
Clinical & Coding Specifications
Clinical Context
A 42-year-old patient is referred to a facility-based sleep laboratory for overnight evaluation of excessive daytime sleepiness and suspected sleep-disordered breathing. The patient reports witnessed apneas, loud snoring, and morning headaches. The technologist performs an attended overnight polysomnography that includes EEG-based sleep staging plus four or more additional physiological parameters (e.g., electrooculogram, chin EMG, airflow, respiratory effort, oximetry) to assess for obstructive or central sleep apnea and other sleep disorders. The typical clinical workflow includes pre-test history and consent, hookup by a trained sleep technologist, continuous attended monitoring overnight in the sleep laboratory (facility POS 22 or POS 11 depending on setting), scoring and interpretation by a qualified sleep medicine or pulmonary physician, and documentation of findings and recommendations.
Coding Specifications
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Modifier
52: Reduced services (e.g., less than 6 hours of recording). Use when the performed polysomnography is intentionally or unavoidably shortened but the study still meets partial documentation requirements. -
Associated provider taxonomies:
| Taxonomy Code | Specialty |
|---|---|
207Q00000X | Sleep Medicine |