Guides HCPCS update cycle
How Often Are HCPCS Codes Updated?
HCPCS Level II is republished four times a year, with releases effective January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1. The faster cadence exists because the set has to name real products and drugs as they reach the market.
Four releases a year
CMS publishes a HCPCS Level II release every quarter. The effective dates are fixed:
| Quarter | Effective |
|---|---|
| Q1 | January 1 |
| Q2 | April 1 |
| Q3 | July 1 |
| Q4 | October 1 |
The current release is October 2026, which holds 8,769 codes. MedCodeSearch has loaded all four 2026 quarterly releases, so a code's page shows its movement through the year rather than a single snapshot. See Data Sources for the full list and Code Updates for what changed in each.
Why the cadence is faster than ICD-10
The two systems describe different kinds of things, and the difference in cadence follows from that.
ICD-10-CM classifies conditions. Disease classification changes when clinical understanding or reporting requirements change, which is a slow process well suited to one carefully coordinated release a year.
HCPCS Level II names products, drugs, devices and supplies. New items reach the market continuously, and until an item has a code there is no standard way to identify it on a claim. Waiting up to a year would leave real, already-available products unnameable, so the set turns over four times as often.
A HCPCS Level II code list is stale faster than an ICD-10 one. A copy taken in February may already be missing codes by April. Always check which release a reference is showing — every code page here names its release and effective date.
What a quarterly release changes
- New codes for items and services that did not previously have one.
- Revised descriptions, where the wording that identifies an item is updated. The code keeps its identity; the text changes.
- Discontinued codes, removed from the active set. What that means for lookups is covered in What Happens When a Medical Code Is Deleted?
- Updated administrative fields — the coverage, pricing and action indicators the CMS record carries alongside the description.
The exact per-release figures are computed from the files themselves and published on Code Updates for October 2026, with new and revised broken out separately. Earlier 2026 quarters are listed on the updates hub.
The dates carried on a code
Unlike ICD-10-CM, the HCPCS Level II record carries dates on the code itself. Depending on the code, the file can include the date it was added, an action code with its own effective date, and a termination date for a code being retired. MedCodeSearch shows these where the source file provides them, without interpretation.
This means a HCPCS code can announce its own retirement in advance: a termination date in the file tells you the code is on the way out before the release that removes it. It is a level of forward notice the ICD-10 files do not provide in the same way.
Reading a code history here
Because all four 2026 quarterly releases are loaded, a HCPCS code page shows one entry per release it appears in. If a description was revised mid-year, both the old and new wording are visible with the release each belongs to. If no change is recorded for a release the code is present in, the code was unchanged in that release — MedCodeSearch does not manufacture a “revised” entry to fill a gap. That rule is spelled out on Methodology.
Side by side with ICD-10
| HCPCS Level II | ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS | |
|---|---|---|
| Releases per year | Four | One |
| Effective dates | January 1, April 1, July 1, October 1 | October 1 |
| Release naming | By calendar quarter | By federal fiscal year |
| Published by | CMS | CDC / NCHS and CMS |
| Current release | October 2026 | FY 2027 |
The one date both systems share is October 1, when a HCPCS quarterly release and the annual ICD-10 release take effect together. It is the busiest day of the year for anyone maintaining a code list.
Official sources
Where the facts on this page come from. MedCodeSearch is an independent reference service; these organizations publish the code sets themselves.
- CMS — HCPCS quarterly update
Each quarterly HCPCS Level II release file, published by CMS.
- CMS — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
The federal agency responsible for ICD-10-PCS and HCPCS Level II.
Look up a code
Search every current ICD-10-CM, ICD-10-PCS and HCPCS Level II code, or browse a set from the top of its hierarchy.
Browse ICD-10-CM Browse ICD-10-PCS Browse HCPCS Level II Code updates
This guide explains how the code sets are built and published. It is not coding, billing, legal or medical advice, and it never recommends a code for a specific patient or claim. See the Disclaimer and Methodology pages.