F48.2 — Pseudobulbar affect
F48.2 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code for pseudobulbar affect. It is valid for submission on a claim.
Code first
The underlying condition must be sequenced before this code.
Inclusion terms
Alternative wordings a physician may use in the chart for this same code.
- Involuntary emotional expression disorder
Risk adjustment
F48.2 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
F48.2 is named in 14 Medicare coverage policies — 13 listing it as supporting medical necessity, and 1 listing it as NOT covered. Which of them applies to you depends on your Medicare contractor, and coverage genuinely differs by state.
- A52434Health and Behavior Assessment/Intervention – Medical Policy Articlenot covered
- A53064Billing and Coding: Outpatient Occupational Therapy
- A54111Billing and Coding: Speech Language Pathology (SLP) Services: Communication Disorders
- A56612Billing and Coding: CT of the Head
How F48.2 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 F48.2.
- Pseudobulbar affect(PBA)
- Disorder›involuntary emotional expression(IEED)
Related codes at this level
Codes that share F48. If F48.2 is not quite right, the correct code is usually one of these.
Questions about F48.2
- Is F48.2 a billable ICD-10-CM code?
- Yes. F48.2 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code and is valid for submission on a claim.
- Where does F48.2 sit in the tabular list?
- Mental, Behavioral and Neurodevelopmental disorders (F01-F99), in the block Anxiety, dissociative, stress-related, somatoform and other nonpsychotic mental disorders (F40-F48).