S09.91 — Unspecified injury of ear
S09.91 is a non-billable header ICD-10-CM code for unspecified injury of ear. It cannot be billed on its own: choose one of the more specific child codes below. This code also requires a 7th character before it is complete.
This code requires a 7th character
The appropriate 7th character is to be added to each code from category S09
- A
- initial encounter
- D
- subsequent encounter
- S
- sequela
Inclusion terms
Alternative wordings a physician may use in the chart for this same code.
- Injury of ear NOS
Other codes that can never be billed with S09.91
These codes carry an Excludes1 note pointing at S09.91. The conflict binds both ways, but ICD-10-CM only writes it down on one side — so you would not find this by reading S09.91 alone.
- S09.3Other specified and unspecified injury of middle and inner ear
Risk adjustment
S09.91 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.
How S09.91 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 S09.91.
- Injury›auditory canal(external) (meatus)
- Injury›auricle, auris, ear
- Injury›ear(auricle) (external) (canal)
Code to one of these instead S09.91
3 child codes. Green means billable.
Related codes at this level
Codes that share S09.9. If S09.91 is not quite right, the correct code is usually one of these.
Questions about S09.91
- Is S09.91 a billable ICD-10-CM code?
- No. S09.91 is a non-billable header code. Code to a higher level of specificity using one of its child codes.
- Where does S09.91 sit in the tabular list?
- Injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes (S00-T88), in the block Injuries to the head (S00-S09).