Neurology & Pain Management Coding Alert

Question: When a patient suffers from post-traumatic headache, what is the best ICD-10 code to represent this condition?

New Hampshire Subscriber

Answer: First, you’ll need to decide whether the headache was unspecified, acute, or chronic. Then you can choose among the following codes to start:

• G44.30- (Post-traumatic headache, unspecified)
• G44.31- (Acute post-traumatic headache)
• G44.32- (Chronic post-traumatic headache)

6th character options: You’ll then use a 6th character to indicate whether the headache was intractable (“1”) or not intractable (“9”).