CPT code 00873 designates anesthesia services provided during extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) performed without a water bath. The code captures anesthesia care for a commonly used noninvasive urologic procedure to fragment renal or ureteral calculi when monitored sedation or deeper anesthesia is required. Nationally, accurate reporting of this anesthesia code affects procedure-level documentation, facility billing, and aggregation of anesthesia utilization for urologic interventions.

Key payers included in this analysis are Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Health, UnitedHealthcare, and Medicare. Readers will find a concise explanation of clinical context and typical sites of service, connections to related anesthesia and perioperative coding, and pointers to adjacent procedural codes used for comparable operative settings. The publication outlines typical coding considerations, associated clinical indications for ESWL without a water bath, and how this anesthesia code fits within broader anesthesia service lines.

This summary equips billing managers, anesthesiology departments, and revenue cycle teams with the clinical framing and payer landscape for CPT code 00873, enabling clearer mapping between operative documentation and payer submissions. Data not available in the input for specific reimbursement benchmarks or payer-specific policy differences is noted where applicable.