Q44.3 — Congenital stenosis and stricture of bile ducts
Q44.3 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code for congenital stenosis and stricture of bile ducts. It is valid for submission on a claim.
Other codes that can never be billed with Q44.3
These codes carry an Excludes1 note pointing at Q44.3. The conflict binds both ways, but ICD-10-CM only writes it down on one side — so you would not find this by reading Q44.3 alone.
- K83.1Obstruction of bile duct
Risk adjustment
Q44.3 risk-adjusts. Under the CMS-HCC V28 model it maps to this category:
- HCC 68 Cholangitis and Obstruction of Bile Duct Without Gallstones0.388 RAF
Coefficient shown for the Community Non-dual Aged segment. A higher HCC in the same hierarchy will suppress this one, so capturing it does not always add score.
Medicare coverage
Q44.3 is named in 1 Medicare coverage policy — 1 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
How Q44.3 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 Q44.3.
- Obstruction, obstructed, obstructive›bile duct or passage›congenital(causing jaundice)
- Stenosis, stenotic›bile duct›congenital
- Stenosis, stenotic›common duct›congenital
- Stricture›bile duct›congenital
Related codes at this level
Codes that share Q44. If Q44.3 is not quite right, the correct code is usually one of these.
Questions about Q44.3
- Is Q44.3 a billable ICD-10-CM code?
- Yes. Q44.3 is a billable, specific ICD-10-CM code and is valid for submission on a claim.
- Where does Q44.3 sit in the tabular list?
- Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities (Q00-QA0), in the block Other congenital malformations of the digestive system (Q38-Q45).