N15.9 — Renal tubulo-interstitial disease, unspecified
N15.9 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code for renal tubulo-interstitial disease, unspecified. 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.
- urinary tract infection NOS (N39.0)
Inclusion terms
Alternative wordings a physician may use in the chart for this same code.
- Infection of kidney NOS
Risk adjustment
N15.9 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
N15.9 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.
- A55336Billing and Coding: Retroperitoneal Ultrasound
- A56421Billing and Coding: CT of the Abdomen and Pelvis
How N15.9 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 N15.9.
- Disease, diseased›tubulo-interstitial
- Infection, infected, infective›kidney(cortex) (hematogenous)
Related codes at this level
Codes that share N15. If N15.9 is not quite right, the correct code is usually one of these.
Questions about N15.9
- Is N15.9 a billable ICD-10-CM code?
- Yes. N15.9 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code and is valid for submission on a claim.
- Where does N15.9 sit in the tabular list?
- Diseases of the genitourinary system (N00-N99), in the block Renal tubulo-interstitial diseases (N10-N16).
- What cannot be coded together with N15.9?
- N15.9 carries an Excludes1 note, which means the conditions it lists can never be coded together with it on the same encounter.