(2022) Difference Between Outpatient Code Editor Edits & CCI Edits

The OCE edits and the CCI edits are two editing systems used to process fiscal intermediary (hospital outpatient) and carrier-related claims, respectively.

The CCI edits are developed based on coding conventions defined in the AMA’s CPT Manual, current standards of medical and surgical coding practice, input from specialty societies, and based on analysis of current coding practice. The CCI edits are used for carrier processing of physician services under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule while the OCE edits are used by intermediaries for processing hospital outpatient services under the Hospital OPPS.

The OCE is used in processing OPPS claims. Within the OCE are over 50 OCE edits, which determine whether a specific code is payable under the hospital OPPS. Many of the CCI edits are included in the OCE edits. The OCE edits are used exclusively under the hospital OPPS – they are not used within the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.

The CCI edits always consist of pairs of HCPCS codes, and are arranged in two tables. One is the column 1/column 2 correct coding edits table, and the other is known as the mutually exclusive edits table. The OCE edits are arranged in numerical order with descriptions for each edit, as well as a claim disposition for each edit.

Please note: Effective April 1, 2012, CMS will no longer publish a Mutually Exclusive edit file on its website for either practitioner or outpatient hospital services since all active and deleted edits will appear in the single Column One/Column Two Correct Coding edit file on each website.  The edits previously contained in the Mutually Exclusive edit file are NOT being deleted but are being moved to the Column One/Column Two Correct Coding edit file.