R78.71 — Abnormal lead level in blood
R78.71 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code for abnormal lead level in blood. 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.
- lead poisoning (T56.0-)
Risk adjustment
R78.71 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
R78.71 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.
- A56686Billing and Coding: HbA1c
- A57189Billing and Coding: Serum Magnesium
- A59186Billing and Coding: Magnesium
How R78.71 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 R78.71.
- Findings, abnormal, inconclusive, without diagnosis›in blood›lead
Related codes at this level
Codes that share R78.7. If R78.71 is not quite right, the correct code is usually one of these.
Questions about R78.71
- Is R78.71 a billable ICD-10-CM code?
- Yes. R78.71 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code and is valid for submission on a claim.
- Where does R78.71 sit in the tabular list?
- Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (R00-R99), in the block Abnormal findings on examination of blood, without diagnosis (R70-R79).
- What cannot be coded together with R78.71?
- R78.71 carries an Excludes1 note, which means the conditions it lists can never be coded together with it on the same encounter.