D56.9 — Thalassemia, unspecified
D56.9 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code for thalassemia, unspecified. It is valid for submission on a claim.
Inclusion terms
Alternative wordings a physician may use in the chart for this same code.
- Mediterranean anemia (with other hemoglobinopathy)
Risk adjustment
D56.9 does not map to an HCC and does not risk-adjust under CMS-HCC V28. That is normal — most ICD-10 codes do not. It still needs to be coded correctly; it just will not move a RAF score.
Medicare coverage
D56.9 is named in 9 Medicare coverage policies — 9 listing it as supporting medical necessity. Which of them applies to you depends on your Medicare contractor, and coverage genuinely differs by state.
- A55717Billing and Coding: Lab: Flow Cytometry
- A56580Billing and Coding: Computerized Axial Tomography (CT), Thorax
- A56697Billing and Coding: Non-Invasive Vascular Studies
- A56718Billing and Coding: Intravenous Immunoglobulin (IVIG)
How D56.9 is indexed
Coders do not find codes by browsing the tabular list — they look them up in the alphabetic index, under the word the physician wrote. These are the index entries that lead here, so you can see which chart wordings map to D56.9.
- Leptocytosis, hereditary
- Rietti-Greppi-Micheli anemia
- Thalassemia(anemia) (disease)
- Anemia›Mediterranean(with other hemoglobinopathy)
- Anemia›microelliptopoikilocytic(Rietti-Greppi- Micheli)
- Anemia›Rietti-Greppi-Micheli
- Anemia›thalassemia
- Disease, diseased›high fetal gene or hemoglobin thalassemia
- Arthritis, arthritic›in›thalassemia NEC
- Disease, diseased›hemoglobin or Hb›I thalassemia
- Disease, diseased›hemoglobin or Hb›abnormal NEC›with thalassemia
- Disease, diseased›hemoglobin or Hb›H›with other abnormal hemoglobin NEC
Related codes at this level
Codes that share D56. If D56.9 is not quite right, the correct code is usually one of these.
Questions about D56.9
- Is D56.9 a billable ICD-10-CM code?
- Yes. D56.9 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code and is valid for submission on a claim.
- Where does D56.9 sit in the tabular list?
- Diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs and certain disorders involving the immune mechanism (D50-D89), in the block Hemolytic anemias (D55-D59).