Q03.8 — Other congenital hydrocephalus
Q03.8 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code for other congenital hydrocephalus. It is valid for submission on a claim.
Excludes1 inherited from the categories above Q03.8
These are not written on Q03.8, but they bind it: a note on a category applies to every code beneath it. Billing Q03.8 with anything listed here is a denial.
Other codes that can never be billed with Q03.8
These codes carry an Excludes1 note pointing at Q03.8. The conflict binds both ways, but ICD-10-CM only writes it down on one side — so you would not find this by reading Q03.8 alone.
Risk adjustment
Q03.8 risk-adjusts. Under the CMS-HCC V28 model it maps to this category:
- HCC 182 Spinal Cord Disorders/Injuries0.478 RAF
Coefficient shown for the Community Non-dual Aged segment. A higher HCC in the same hierarchy will suppress this one, so capturing it does not always add score.
Medicare coverage
Q03.8 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.
- A54111Billing and Coding: Speech Language Pathology (SLP) Services: Communication Disorders
- A56612Billing and Coding: CT of the Head
- A57204Billing and Coding: MRI and CT Scans of the Head and Neck
How Q03.8 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 Q03.8.
- Obstruction, obstructed, obstructive›foramen of Monro(congenital)
- Hydrocephalus›congenital›specified NEC
Code history
Q03.8 has not changed since FY2024 — no addition, revision or deletion across the three most recent ICD-10-CM releases.
Related codes at this level
Codes that share Q03. If Q03.8 is not quite right, the correct code is usually one of these.
Questions about Q03.8
- Is Q03.8 a billable ICD-10-CM code?
- Yes. Q03.8 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code and is valid for submission on a claim.
- Where does Q03.8 sit in the tabular list?
- Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities (Q00-QA0), in the block Congenital malformations of the nervous system (Q00-Q07).
- What cannot be coded together with Q03.8?
- Q03.8 carries Excludes1 notes, which means the conditions they list can never be coded together with it on the same encounter. Some are written on the categories above Q03.8 (Q03) and apply to it just the same.