T79.0Air embolism (traumatic)

T79.0 is the ICD-10-CM diagnosis code for air embolism (traumatic). It belongs to category T79 (certain early complications of trauma, not elsewhere classified), block T79 (certain early complications of trauma) and chapter 19 (injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes). It is a header code, so it can't be reported by itself; one of its 3 subcodes must be used instead.

Within T79 (certain early complications of trauma, not elsewhere classified), T79.0 is specifically for air embolism (traumatic). Related codes cover fat embolism (traumatic) (T79.1), traumatic secondary and recurrent hemorrhage and seroma (T79.2), traumatic shock (T79.4), traumatic anuria (T79.5), traumatic ischemia of muscle (T79.6), traumatic subcutaneous emphysema (T79.7), other early complications of trauma (T79.8), unspecified early complication of trauma (T79.9) and 1 more.

Codes in this range require a 7th character: A for initial encounter, D for subsequent encounter and S for sequela. Use placeholder "X" characters to fill any empty positions before the 7th character.

Don't report T79.0 together with the conditions in its Excludes1 note: air embolism complicating abortion or ectopic or molar pregnancy (O00-O07, O08.2), air embolism complicating pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium (O88.0), air embolism following infusion, transfusion, and therapeutic injection (T80.0) and air embolism following procedure NEC (T81.7-).

It has been part of ICD-10-CM since the code set took effect on October 1, 2015 and hasn't changed since.