ICD 10 Coding Alert

If you think even nausea gets more specific in October 2015, you’d be right.

When a patient feels nauseous, she feels discomfort in the upper stomach and may involuntarily expel the contents of her stomach through her mouth, known as vomiting. Currently, you’ll report this with 787.01 (Nausea with vomiting).

ICD-10-CM: That changes in October 2015. That’s when you’ll shift to R11.2 (Nausea with vomiting, unspecified). 

Change: You have a direct one-to-one correlation between these codes. You should use R11.2 for this symptom when ICD-10 hits.

Documentation: Your provider may document “persistent nausea with vomiting NOS.”

Be aware: You do have codes for just nausea (R11.0) and different types of vomiting without nausea (R11.1-). 

Here is how you will locate this code in the Alphabetic Index:

• Hyperemesis R11.10
• - with nausea R11.2
• Nausea (without vomiting) R11.0
• - with vomiting R11.2
• Rumination R11.10
• - with nausea R11.2
• Vomiting R11.10
• - with nausea R11.2

Coder tips: Underneath the R11 category (Nausea and vomiting) you will so an Excludes1 note that forbids you from reporting any of these codes with:

• cyclical vomiting associated with migraine (G43.A-)
• excessive vomiting in pregnancy (O21.-)
• hematemesis (K92.0)
• neonatal hematemesis (P54.0)
• newborn vomiting (P92.0-)
• psychogenic vomiting (F50.8)
• vomiting associated with bulimia nervosa (F50.2)
• vomiting following gastrointestinal surgery (K91.0).