K40.90 — Unilateral inguinal hernia, without obstruction or gangrene, not specified as recurrent
K40.90 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code for unilateral inguinal hernia, without obstruction or gangrene, not specified as recurrent. It is valid for submission on a claim.
Inclusion terms
Alternative wordings a physician may use in the chart for this same code.
- Inguinal hernia NOS
- Unilateral inguinal hernia NOS
Risk adjustment
K40.90 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
K40.90 is named in 2 Medicare coverage policies — 2 listing it as supporting medical necessity. Which of them applies to you depends on your Medicare contractor, and coverage genuinely differs by state.
- A56421Billing and Coding: CT of the Abdomen and Pelvis
- A56787Billing and Coding: Nonvascular Extremity Ultrasound
How K40.90 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 K40.90.
- Hernia, hernial›inguinal(direct) (external) (funicular) (indirect) (internal) (oblique) (scrotal) (sliding)
- Hernia, hernial›inguinal›not specified as recurrent
- Hernia, hernial›inguinal›unilateral
- Hernia, hernial›inguinal›unilateral›not specified as recurrent
Related codes at this level
Codes that share K40.9. If K40.90 is not quite right, the correct code is usually one of these.
Questions about K40.90
- Is K40.90 a billable ICD-10-CM code?
- Yes. K40.90 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code and is valid for submission on a claim.
- Where does K40.90 sit in the tabular list?
- Diseases of the digestive system (K00-K95), in the block Hernia (K40-K46).