Y36.44War operations involving unarmed hand to hand combat

Y36.44 is the ICD-10-CM diagnosis code for war operations involving unarmed hand to hand combat. It belongs to category Y36 (operations of war), block Y35-Y38 (legal intervention, operations of war, military operations, and terrorism) and chapter 20 (external causes of morbidity). It is a header code, so it can't be reported by itself; one of its 2 subcodes must be used instead.

Within Y36.4 (war operations involving firearm discharge and other forms of conventional warfare), Y36.44 is specifically for war operations involving unarmed hand to hand combat. Related codes cover rubber bullets (Y36.41), firearms pellets (Y36.42), other firearms discharge (Y36.43), combat using blunt or piercing object (Y36.45), intentional restriction of air and airway (Y36.46), unintentional restriction of air and airway (Y36.47) and other forms of conventional warfare (Y36.49).

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 Y36.44 together with the conditions in its Excludes1 note: war operations involving combat using blunt or piercing object (Y36.45-), war operations involving intentional restriction of air and airway (Y36.46-) and war operations involving unintentional restriction of air and airway (Y36.47-).

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