Summary & Overview
HCPCS G9792: Most Recent Tobacco Status Not Tobacco Free
HCPCS Level II code G9792 documents that a patient’s most recent tobacco status is not tobacco free. Nationally, this code supports population health tracking, quality measurement, and administrative reporting for tobacco use screening and status documentation across ambulatory care settings. It matters for public health monitoring and payer quality programs that track smoking and tobacco use prevalence among patient panels.
Key payers typically included in analyses of this code are Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Health, UnitedHealthcare, and Medicare. Readers will find an overview of the code’s clinical meaning and typical service contexts, discussion of payer coverage relevance, and the types of benchmarks and quality reporting applications where G9792 is used. The publication outlines how the code fits into broader tobacco use assessment workflows, common sites of service for documentation, and where to expect this code in preventive and chronic care encounters.
Data not available in the input for specific taxonomies, ICD-10 pairings, or related billing codes.
Billing Code Overview
HCPCS Level II code G9792 indicates that a patient's most recent tobacco status is not tobacco free. This code documents the current tobacco use status recorded in the medical record and is used to denote that the patient reports ongoing tobacco use or has a recorded status other than tobacco-free.
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Service type: Tobacco use status assessment and documentation
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Typical site of service: Outpatient clinical settings, primary care offices, preventive health visits, and other ambulatory care encounters where tobacco use screening and status documentation are performed
Clinical & Coding Specifications
Clinical Context
A primary care patient attends a routine office visit for chronic disease management and preventive care. During the visit the clinician documents tobacco use status in the medical record and determines the patient is currently using tobacco (cigarettes, cigars, or smokeless tobacco). The office staff updates the electronic health record problem list and social history, and the clinician records counseling or brief cessation intervention if provided. The billing code G9792 is used to indicate that the patient’s most recent tobacco status is not tobacco free. Typical workflow steps include: intake screening by nursing staff, clinician confirmation and documentation of current tobacco use, optional brief cessation counseling or referral to a tobacco treatment program, and coding/billing staff appending G9792 on the claim to reflect the patient’s current tobacco status when required by reporting/quality measurement programs.
Coding Specifications
| Modifier | Description | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
22 | Increased procedural services | Use when services related to tobacco status documentation require substantially greater work than typically required (rare for this code). |