5 min readBy Eric L. Eakin, DC
The 98940–98943 coding mistakes draining small practices
The chiropractic manipulative treatment codes are simple on the surface and easy to get subtly wrong.
The CMT codes — 98940, 98941, 98942, and 98943 — are defined by the number of spinal regions treated. That simplicity is exactly why errors hide in them and repeat across thousands of claims.
Where the dollars leak
- Region counts in the billed code that the note does not support, inviting downcoding or denial.
- Missing or misapplied modifiers when a separately identifiable service is performed the same day.
- Extraspinal treatment (98943) billed without documentation tying it to a covered, medically necessary problem.
Individually these look like rounding errors. Multiplied across a year of visits, they are often the single largest recoverable line in a practice’s data — and the easiest to fix, because the pattern is consistent.
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