ICD-10-CM Coding:
Don’t Mix up Brackets and Parentheses in ICD-10-CM Entries
Published on Wed Oct 14, 2026
Question: I’m new to coding and have noticed that both brackets and parentheses are used in my ICD-10-CM code book. Do they signify different meanings? Nebraska Subscriber Answer: Brackets and parentheses serve different purposes in ICD-10-CM. In the Alphabetic Index, brackets identify a manifestation code that you should report with the code for the underlying condition. The code in brackets [...]