After Years of ACOG Advocacy, AMA Releases New Obstetric Codes

Washington, D.C.- After years of advocacy by the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) and its members, the AMA announced the new obstetric codes that will replace the bundled global obstetric payment for maternity care services and better reflect the reality of how ob-gyns provide maternity care in the United States.

In response to years of feedback from ob-gyns across the country, ACOG's Committee on Health Economics and Coding submitted an application to eliminate the global obstetric payment and worked with the AMA to revise the new codes that will be used to bill for maternity care services, including prenatal care, labor and delivery, and postpartum care, starting January 1, 2027.

"There have been major changes in the provision of obstetric care since the 1990s when the global obstetric payment was introduced," said ACOG President Steven J. Fleischman, MD, MBA, FACOG. "The unbundling of the obstetric codes has been long overdue and will finally offer relief to so many ob-gyns who viewed the global obstetric payment as a major pain point. This new code structure now aligns with clinical guidelines and will reduce administrative burden, improve data collection, and enable ob-gyns to provide more tailored, patient-centered care while also being paid fairly and equitably so we can sustain our practices."

The effort to eliminate the global obstetric payment was a twofold push from ACOG that also included new guidance on transforming the way prenatal care is delivered. Tailored Prenatal Care Delivery for Pregnant Individuals, released in April 2025, introduced a new approach that would allow for individualized care plans based on medical, structural, and social determinants of health along with patient preferences rather than using the traditional one-size-fits-all model. This change to care plans could result in fewer than the standard 12-14 in-person visits for low-risk pregnant patients and the use of other care modalities such as home monitoring, which would have made the continuation of the global obstetric payment unsustainable.

"The current payment methodologies simply no longer reflect the care being provided today or the care ob-gyns will provide in the near future," said ACOG CEO Sandra E. Brooks, MD, MBA, FACOG. "This includes the increasing use of home monitoring and telehealth and additional monitoring needed in the postpartum period for mental health conditions, hemorrhage, and cardiac conditions, which are the leading causes of maternal deaths. The new unbundled obstetric codes now align with the nuanced and varied experience of pregnancy and will allow clinicians to provide more tailored, patient-centered care while also increasing access and improving maternal health outcomes."

Despite these coding changes, most patients should not expect to see any cost increases. An estimated 93% of health plans in the United States are compliant with the Affordable Care Act and therefore are not allowed to require cost sharing for preventive services, so patients on those plans should not be subject to copayments for prenatal visits or screenings. However, there will continue to be charges for labor, delivery, and other services not considered preventive care.

Although the new obstetric codes don't go into effect for all health plans until 2027, ACOG continues to work with the AMA and has developed several educational resources to support ob-gyn members throughout the transition and to help them prepare.

Visit ACOG's coding resources.