Z02.81Encounter for paternity testing

Z02.81 is the ICD-10-CM diagnosis code for encounter for paternity testing. It belongs to category Z02 (encounter for administrative examination), block Z00-Z13 (persons encountering health services for examinations) and chapter 21 (factors influencing health status and contact with health services). It is billable, so it can be reported on its own for dates of service from October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027.

Within Z02.8 (encounter for other administrative examinations), Z02.81 is specifically for encounter for paternity testing. Related codes cover adoption services (Z02.82), blood-alcohol and blood-drug test (Z02.83), child welfare exam (Z02.84) and other administrative examinations (Z02.89).

It is not a CC or MCC, so as a secondary diagnosis it doesn't change the MS-DRG severity level.

In MS-DRG v44.0, it is part of the grouping logic for DRG 951 (Other Factors Influencing Health Status, relative weight 0.5577), in MDC 23 (Factors Influencing Health Status and Other Contacts with Health Services), as a principal or secondary diagnosis. The DRG a claim lands in depends on the principal diagnosis, procedures and any CC/MCC secondary diagnoses.

It is exempt from present-on-admission (POA) reporting, so no POA indicator is required.

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

Before ICD-10, this condition was coded in ICD-9-CM as V70.4 (examination for medicolegal reasons).