Wiki CPC Exam-I'm a coding student

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jsalzer50

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Hello!

I'm a coding student and scheduled to take my CPC exam end of June 2016.

My professors have been clear that most people don't pass due to the anatomy & physiology questions. I'm confident I will do okay on the A&P, but will be reviewing intensively. I recently used Kahn Academy and found their A&P videos very useful.

As for ICD-10-CM, I'm well-versed in finding dx codes but need improvement on remembering chapter-specific guidelines...or perhaps I just need to get into the habit of checking the guidelines before my final codes are assigned...

As for CPT, I'm doing well in-class. My main focus for improvement is E/M coding and modifiers. I've typed up a modifiers document that has been helpful. I've improved but need more practice.

Does anyone have advice to help prepare for the CPC exam?

Thanks!

Jacob
 
A&P are supposed to be the easy ones but you could still get the whole section wrong and pass. You get 45 to either, skip, guess or get wrong and still pass. Sometimes if you are stuck on A&P, just looking in the ICD-10 index may help you figure out an organ. I have not tried Khan acadamy yet but I hear Crash Course in Anatomy is good:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtOAKed_MxxWBNaPno5h3Zs8

With ICD-10 familiarizing self with guidelines can be helpful. Some of the test questions I was able to answer just by looking in the guidelines page

For E&M its not as scary as I thought it was going to be. The key to answering is determining the location (Office, ER, Observation, Inpatient etc), New vs Established (so you know if you are looking at 2 of 2 or 3 of 3). Most of the time they will give you the History, Exam & MDM. If they dont they may give 2 of them and you have to figure out the third. For example they may not give you MDM but they will tell you "Number of diagnoses or Management options"; "amount or complexity of data"; "Risk" and you will need to know by looking at the table of MDM and knowing that you need to meet 2 of 3 to reach an MDM level. They wont be making you figure out how what the risk is or that X, Y ,Z constitutes Moderate amount of data.

Remember that you cannot staple, tape, paste etc information into your book. So if you may want to find a blank page in the book and handwrite the reference you typed up as writing in the book is allowed. You can have tabs to help you mark sections of a book but you cant use tabs to add additional information.
 
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Thank You

Thank you for the information. I do have just a few hand-written notes in my ICD-10-CM code book, and the CPT code book. I have guideline sections and categories highlighted as well. I will take your advice and use blank pages and margins to write helpful notes in my code books. That's a great idea. Thank you. Also great to hear about E/M coding. I'm getting better at it, slowly but surely. Also great to hear about tabs, as I have all my code books organized with tabs. I do have the tabs labeled A-Z in the index, as well as A-Z in the Tabular with no other additional information. 'hope that is okay as I find these tabs extremely helpful. Sincerely, Jacob
 
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