R48.0 — Dyslexia and alexia
R48.0 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code for dyslexia and alexia. It is valid for submission on a claim.
Excludes1 inherited from the categories above R48.0
These are not written on R48.0, but they bind it: a note on a category applies to every code beneath it. Billing R48.0 with anything listed here is a denial.
Other codes that can never be billed with R48.0
These codes carry an Excludes1 note pointing at R48.0. The conflict binds both ways, but ICD-10-CM only writes it down on one side — so you would not find this by reading R48.0 alone.
- F81.0Specific reading disorder
Risk adjustment
R48.0 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
R48.0 is named in 16 Medicare coverage policies — 14 listing it as supporting medical necessity, and 2 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
- A56865Billing and Coding: Psychiatric Inpatient Hospitalizationnot covered
- A52866Billing and Coding: Speech-Language Pathology
- A53052Billing and Coding: Home Health Speech-Language Pathology
How R48.0 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 R48.0.
- Alexia
- Dyslexia
- Agraphia›with alexia
- Alexia›secondary to organic lesion
- Disorder›reading
- Blindness›word›acquired
- Blindness›word›secondary to organic lesion
- Disorder›learning›alexia
Code history
R48.0 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 R48. If R48.0 is not quite right, the correct code is usually one of these.
Questions about R48.0
- Is R48.0 a billable ICD-10-CM code?
- Yes. R48.0 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code and is valid for submission on a claim.
- Where does R48.0 sit in the tabular list?
- Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (R00-R99), in the block Symptoms and signs involving speech and voice (R47-R49).
- What cannot be coded together with R48.0?
- R48.0 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 R48.0 (R48) and apply to it just the same.