Wiki CPC-A to continue....This Just In!

Pam Warren

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From AAPC News 3/15/2012


CPC-A® Designation to Continue... For Now
At the recommendation of the National Advisory Board (NAB), AAPC leadership released a proposal in January to eliminate the "A" designation. As a result, we received hundreds of comments from members and spent a good deal of time carefully reviewing each of them.
67% did not agree with the proposal, surprisingly including many CPC-As. Of the 33% that did agree, a large percentage wanted to see modifications to the proposal made first, yet many of those recommendations conflicted strongly with other comments. Notably, there appeared to be little appetite for an additional exam of operative note coding.
While we still believe a resume indicating the experience level of an individual should speak for itself, AAPC expects CPC® coders to be able to perform not only in an exam setting but also demonstrate coding experience (or an ability to code real-world cases) before receiving the full CPC® credential.
Consequently, until an alternative solution can be developed to eliminate the "A" designation, yet still preserve the standards the CPC® represents, the CPC-A® designation will continue... for now.
 
Hi, Pam, just saw that and now we await to see the resultant comments. One other thing in that article that really, really surprised me was the limited percentage of members who read the Edgeblast!! Really? How'd they come up with that figure? Can't imagine NOT reading as it surely does keep the members on the cutting edge of news for our business!! ---Suzanne E. Byrum
 
Cpc-a

If aapc is going to continue to put an a next to our credentials, then i feel there needs to be a better effort made in the project xtern department. Every job i see requires at least 1 year or more experience. I worked hard to get through my course at the allotted time and take exam. I am a 46 year old mother of a 10 year old. I feel like i wasted my money and time.
 
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For the CPC-A's that are applying are you only applying the the ones where you meet the requirements they want? I just got the A taken off 2 weeks ago but when I had only 3 months of expierence I landed a job that required 5 years expierence. YOU need to apply for everything. Once you get an interview then you are on your own to prove what you know but dont let the ads that say they want xxxx years of expierence scare you or else you will never find a job.
 
CPC-A Designation to Continue... For Now

There are many opportunities that a new coder can break into. Apprentice or experienced coders should take classes to further their skills in becomming an analyst, Electronic Health Record Systems even office applications. The role is changing where Healthcare IT skills are coming into play as a coder. Many companies are doing work that ties into medical coding and the people being hired for these jobs posses IT skills and no medical coding so when they touch medical coding data or material they often screw up and create poor results. My suggestion for apprentices is go back to school and take some computer courses and look for jobs or contact agencies that work on Medicaid, medicare, billing, legal offices and analyst jobs in healthcare. These would most likely be short term jobs but you will get experience you need to knock out the A. Computer Aided Coding and Diagnostic Aided Coding will more than likely wipe out the production jobs for coders so its up to each one of you to determine what direction to go into.
Jeff
P.S. If you get your first job as an Apprentice, Be prepared to commute too :D
 
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