However don't make it your automatic choice.
While coding for your anesthesia practice, you may find yourself in various tight situations such as this: Say for instance you may find yourself asking: How should I code for anesthesia during a cystourethroscopy with lithotripsy for a diagnosis of kidney or ureteral stones?
Answer: Well, the anesthesia code crosswal lists 00918 (anesthesia for transurethral procedures [including urethrocystoscopy]; with fragmentation, manipulation and/or removal of ureteral calculus) as the primary anesthesia code for procedures 52352-52355 (Cystourethroscopy, with ureteroscopy and/or pyeloscopy …) however you should not make that your automatic choice.
Notes below each code from 52352-52355 state that you should report 00862 (Anesthesia for extraperitoneal procedures in lower abdomen, inclusive of urinary tract; renal procedures, including upper one-third of ureter, or donor nephrectomy) when lithotripsy involves the kidney or upper one-third of the ureter. Owing to this ‘upper one-third' distinction, you will need a copy of the operative report to code properly.
Many a medical coder gauge their condition by the stone's location. They submit 00910 (Anesthesia for transurethral procedures [including urethrocystoscopy]; not otherwise specified) for a bladder stone, 00918 for a ureter stone, and 00862 for a kidney stone.
For more on this and for other specialty-specific articles to assist your anesthesia coding, sign up for a good coding resource like TCI. Onboard such a site, you can have access to the anesthesia analyst that provides you with anesthesia codes, tools, and resources you need for successful coding. It also comes with an anesthesia code crosswalk to help you choose the proper anesthesia code for each CPT procedure code in the record. Basically, the anesthesia crosswalk is a listing of CPT procedure codes and their corresponding anesthesia codes.
