Summary
UnitedHealthcare's November 2026 commercial medical policy update for Spinal Fusion and Decompression removes CPT codes 22850, 22855, and 63286 from the policy's applicable codes list, effective 2026-12-01. The billing team should stop building claims with these codes for commercial members on or after that date and confirm charge entry and claim edits reflect the removal.
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What to do
Action · 4 steps
01By 2026-12-01: Billing team should review scheduled and pending spinal fusion and decompression cases for commercial members and identify any that involve CPT 22850, 22855, or 63286.
02Update charge entry so these codes are no longer selected for commercial claims after that date, and review claim edits so claims for these codes are routed for coding review instead of going out automatically.
03Front desk staff and surgical schedulers should be told that these codes are no longer on the policy's applicable list so scheduling and pre-service verification match the revised coding.
04Confirm current applicability with the payer's policy page before finalizing workflow changes, since the bulletin lists only the removal of these codes.
Codes mentioned
228502285563286
Original notice
Spinal Fusion and Decompression
uhcprovider.com · Always check the source before changing claims.
Related changes
See all UnitedHealthcare changes →Spinal Fusion and DecompressionMediumEffective Dec 1, 2026 · Medical PolicySpinal Fusion and DecompressionMediumEffective Dec 1, 2026 · Medical PolicySpinal Fusion and DecompressionMediumEffective Dec 1, 2026 · Medical PolicySpinal Fusion and DecompressionHighEffective Nov 1, 2026 · Medical PolicyBrowse every UnitedHealthcare change in the policy list