J00 — Acute nasopharyngitis [common cold]
J00 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code for acute nasopharyngitis [common cold]. It is valid for submission on a claim.
Excludes1 — never code together
These conditions cannot occur together. Billing both on the same encounter is a denial.
Excludes2 — not included here, but may coexist
The excluded condition is not part of this code, but a patient can have both. You may code both.
Inclusion terms
Alternative wordings a physician may use in the chart for this same code.
- Acute rhinitis
- Coryza (acute)
- Infective nasopharyngitis NOS
- Infective rhinitis
- Nasal catarrh, acute
- Nasopharyngitis NOS
Risk adjustment
J00 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
J00 is named in 3 Medicare coverage policies — 3 listing it as supporting medical necessity. Which of them applies to you depends on your Medicare contractor, and coverage genuinely differs by state.
- A58575Billing and Coding: Respiratory Pathogen Panel Testing
- A58577Billing and Coding: Respiratory Pathogen Panel Testing
- A58741Billing and Coding: Respiratory Pathogen Panel Testing
How J00 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 J00.
- Catarrh, catarrhal(acute) (febrile) (infectious) (inflammation)
- Cold
- Coryza(acute)
- Nasopharyngitis(acute) (infective) (streptococcal) (subacute)
- Cold›common(head)
- Cold›head
- Cold›symptoms
- Cold›virus
- Common›cold(head)
- Fever›catarrhal(acute)
- Inflammation, inflamed, inflammatory›catarrhal
- Rhinitis›acute
Questions about J00
- Is J00 a billable ICD-10-CM code?
- Yes. J00 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code and is valid for submission on a claim.
- Where does J00 sit in the tabular list?
- Diseases of the respiratory system (J00-J99), in the block Acute upper respiratory infections (J00-J06).
- What cannot be coded together with J00?
- J00 carries an Excludes1 note, which means the conditions it lists can never be coded together with it on the same encounter.