CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — RIVANNA®, developer of AI-enabled clinical decision-support solutions, today announced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has established ICD-10-PCS code XEZU3HC, effective for inpatient discharges beginning October 1, 2026. The code identifies computer-aided intraprocedural navigation in the spinal canal using ultrasound imaging with continuous needle tracking via a percutaneous approach during neuraxial anesthesia.
Before XEZU3HC, use of diagnostic ultrasound navigation during neuraxial anesthesia was not separately reportable in inpatient hospital coding. Facilities could report the underlying neuraxial anesthesia under existing codes, but the navigation itself left no trace in the record. The new code changes what that record can show: a standardized way to identify coded use and track adoption, and, when linked with clinical and operational data, a basis for evaluating outcomes.
Unintended dural puncture occurs in 0.5% to 1.5% of labor epidural placements (Van de Velde 2008; Choi 2003), and the United States has no dedicated mandatory national reporting system for it. The consequences are not always brief: in a prospective multicenter cohort study that enrolled 90 patients with accidental dural puncture and 180 matched controls, 58% of those who experienced accidental dural puncture still had persistent headache at 18 months, compared with 17% of controls (Niraj 2021).