Is R50.81 a billable ICD-10-CM code?

Yes. R50.81 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code and is valid for submission on a claim.

Where does R50.81 sit in the tabular list?

Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (R00-R99), in the block General symptoms and signs (R50-R69).

What cannot be coded together with R50.81?

R50.81 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 R50.81 (R50) and apply to it just the same.

R50.81

R50.81 — Fever presenting with conditions classified elsewhere

Billable / specific codeICD-10-CM

R50.81 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code for fever presenting with conditions classified elsewhere. It is valid for submission on a claim.

Code first

The underlying condition must be sequenced before this code.

underlying condition when associated fever is present, such as with:
leukemia (C91-C95)
neutropenia (D70.-)
sickle-cell disease (D57.-)

Excludes1 inherited from the categories above R50.81

These are not written on R50.81, but they bind it: a note on a category applies to every code beneath it. Billing R50.81 with anything listed here is a denial.

Written on R50 — Fever of other and unknown origin

chills without fever (R68.83)
febrile convulsions (R56.0-)
fever of unknown origin during labor (O75.2)
fever of unknown origin in newborn (P81.9)
hypothermia due to illness (R68.0)
malignant hyperthermia due to anesthesia (T88.3)
puerperal pyrexia NOS (O86.4)

Risk adjustment

R50.81 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

R50.81 is named in 16 Medicare coverage policies — 16 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
A56476Billing and Coding: Cardiac Radionuclide Imaging
A56505Billing and Coding: Transesophageal Echocardiography (TEE)
A56625Billing and Coding: Echocardiography

How R50.81 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 R50.81.

Fever›presenting with conditions classified elsewhere
Fever›due to›conditions classified elsewhere

Code history

R50.81 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 R50.8. If R50.81 is not quite right, the correct code is usually one of these.

Questions about R50.81

Is R50.81 a billable ICD-10-CM code?: Yes. R50.81 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code and is valid for submission on a claim.
Where does R50.81 sit in the tabular list?: Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (R00-R99), in the block General symptoms and signs (R50-R69).
What cannot be coded together with R50.81?: R50.81 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 R50.81 (R50) and apply to it just the same.