Abdominal Pain ICD-10-CM codes

Category R10 is organized by location. Upper abdomen: R10.10 unspecified upper, R10.11 right upper quadrant, R10.12 left upper quadrant, R10.13 epigastric. Lower abdomen: R10.30 unspecified lower, R10.31 right lower quadrant, R10.32 left lower quadrant, R10.33 periumbilical. R10.84 is generalized abdominal pain, R10.85 pain of multiple sites, R10.2- pelvic and perineal pain with laterality and R10.24 suprapubic, R10.A- flank pain with laterality, and R10.9 unspecified abdominal pain when no location is documented.

R10.0 (acute abdomen) is reserved for the provider's diagnosis of a severe surgical abdomen; it is not a synonym for acute-onset abdominal pain. The R10.81- and R10.82- codes report abdominal tenderness and rebound tenderness by region, and R10.8A- reports flank and suprapubic tenderness. These are examination findings; they are usually redundant when a pain code for the same region is already reported. R10.83 is colic, used mainly for infantile colic.

Once a cause is confirmed, code the cause and not the pain: acute appendicitis K35.80, cholelithiasis K80.20, renal colic N23. Related digestive symptoms have their own codes, such as diarrhea R19.7 and abdominal distension R14.0. In the outpatient setting, when the diagnosis is still uncertain at the end of the visit, report the most specific R10 code that matches the documented location.