2025 CPT code 01770
Effective Date: N/A Anesthesia - Anesthesia for Procedures on the Upper Arm and Elbow Feed
Anesthesia for procedures on arteries of upper arm and elbow; not otherwise specified.
Modifiers can be applied to this code to indicate specific circumstances, such as unusual anesthesia (23), the physical status of the patient (P1-P6), or the type of provider administering anesthesia (AA, AD, QK, QY, etc.).
Medical necessity is established by the underlying procedure requiring anesthesia. The documentation must support the need for the specific procedure performed on the arteries of the upper arm and elbow.
The anesthesiologist is responsible for the patient's well-being before, during, and immediately after the procedure. This includes assessing the patient pre-operatively, administering anesthesia, monitoring vital signs, managing any complications, and overseeing post-anesthesia care.
In simple words: The doctor gives you medicine to make you sleep and feel no pain while another doctor works on the arteries in your upper arm and elbow. This includes checking on you before and after the procedure and making sure you are comfortable and safe.
The provider performs anesthesia services for a patient undergoing procedures on arteries of the upper arm and elbow, such as the brachial, radial, and ulnar arteries. This code is used for anesthesia procedures not specified by any other anesthesia code. The anesthesia provider performs a pre-operative evaluation, induces the patient, and monitors them during the procedure. They document medications, monitoring methods, patient responses, and anesthesia times. Post-operatively, the provider oversees the patient's transfer to post-anesthesia care. Services include pre- and post-operative visits, anesthesia care during the procedure, administration of fluids and/or blood, and standard monitoring (ECG, temperature, blood pressure, oximetry, capnography, mass spectrometry). It does not include unusual monitoring like Swan-Ganz catheters, intra-arterial lines, or central venous lines, which can be coded separately with documentation.
Example 1: A patient requires an embolectomy of the brachial artery due to a blood clot. General anesthesia is administered using code 01770., A patient undergoes surgical repair of a radial artery aneurysm. Anesthesia services for this procedure are reported using 01770., A patient with chronic upper limb ischemia due to atherosclerosis requires a bypass graft of the ulnar artery. Code 01770 is used to report the anesthesia services for this procedure.
Documentation should include details of the pre-anesthesia assessment, type and amount of anesthesia administered, monitoring methods used, patient response, start and stop times of anesthesia, and post-anesthesia care.
- Specialties:Anesthesiology, Vascular Surgery
- Place of Service:Ambulatory Surgical Center, Inpatient Hospital, Outpatient Hospital