V44.9 — Unspecified car occupant injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in traffic accident
V44.9 is a non-billable header ICD-10-CM code for unspecified car occupant injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in traffic accident. 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 V44
- A
- initial encounter
- D
- subsequent encounter
- S
- sequela
Risk adjustment
V44.9 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 V44.9 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 V44.9.
- Accident›transport›car occupant›collision›bus(traffic)
- Accident›transport›car occupant›collision›truck(traffic)
Code to one of these instead V44.9
3 child codes. Green means billable.
- V44.9XXAUnspecified car occupant injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in traffic accident, initial encounter
- V44.9XXDUnspecified car occupant injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in traffic accident, subsequent encounter
- V44.9XXSUnspecified car occupant injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in traffic accident, sequela
Related codes at this level
Codes that share V44. If V44.9 is not quite right, the correct code is usually one of these.
- V44.0Car driver injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in nontraffic accident
- V44.1Car passenger injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in nontraffic accident
- V44.2Person on outside of car injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in nontraffic accident
- V44.3Unspecified car occupant injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in nontraffic accident
- V44.4Person boarding or alighting a car injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus
- V44.5Car driver injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in traffic accident
- V44.6Car passenger injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in traffic accident
- V44.7Person on outside of car injured in collision with heavy transport vehicle or bus in traffic accident
Questions about V44.9
- Is V44.9 a billable ICD-10-CM code?
- No. V44.9 is a non-billable header code. Code to a higher level of specificity using one of its child codes.
- Where does V44.9 sit in the tabular list?
- External causes of morbidity (V00-Y99), in the block Car occupant injured in transport accident (V40-V49).