My experience taking an AAPC medical coding exam

I love the exam centers. They are so, so much better than the old process. The AAPC is now using exam centers for their exams, such as the CPC. I went there, I I took an exam and I'm going to tell you all about it.

I'm going to go over the registration, the scheduling, what information I was sent, what the process was like. And I'm going to compare that to the prior exam process. I'm Victoria Moll. I've been a member of the AAPC since two thousand eight.

I have multiple certifications with the organization, and I previously served on the AAPC chapter association board of directors. And I wanna start off by saying that this is my personal experience at a US based exam center, so you may have international differences if you're taking it outside of the United States. So if you have questions about exams that are not located in the United States, please contact AAPC Global specifically. Now other people are obviously going to have varying experiences based on a lot of different factors, but this is just the reflection of my personal experience, and I do not downplay anyone else's experience if they did not have the same quality experience that I did.

But overall, I would say it was definitely a better experience than going to, for example, the DMV.

Now let's start with the purchase of the exam. I went online and I purchased the exam voucher. Now it doesn't look like they offer one exam voucher anymore. You have to purchase the two attempts and it's good thing that I did.

When I purchased the exam, it also came with a free study guide and I was surprised that they sent me a physical copy instead of an ebook. I actually would have preferred to just have the ebook version of the study guide. It was very thin like that. And I almost didn't even get it in time, which we'll talk about.

You go on the AAPC website. You say that you wanna purchase an exam voucher. You select the exam that you want, make sure you're selecting the correct exam. And then after a short period, it sends you an email saying, hey.

You are available to schedule at the major locations. You can do the remote proctor or the online, and they give you a link. You go into the link. You type in your email address and a little password that they give you, and then it asks you, do you want to take the live remote proctor, or do you want to take the exam at the exam site?

I clicked to take it at the exam site. It then brought me to a page where it said, okay. Well, where are you located? Where would you be interested in taking this exam?

And it did give you the option to select multiple states to search for exam centers, which is good for my area. I'm in Northeastern PA. So it's not out of the question that I would maybe go to New Jersey or New York or even Maryland to take an exam. When I selected my state, it popped up the different options of the exam centers, and I selected the one that was closest to me, which is in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

The exam center that I have looked like it had time slots basically every day for nine AM or one PM. So I selected the next upcoming one for one PM. After I registered, I got a scheduling confirmation notice. The title says AAPC scheduling confirmation notice.

And this is basically your ticket, your admission ticket to take the exam at the center. You really have to read through this document because all of the information you need to know is in here with the exception of a couple of things that you might wanna consider clarifying specifically with your exam center that you're taking it at. So highlights from this email, it tells me what examination I'm taking, the dates, the time. I selected one PM, but it actually says on here to report at twelve forty five.

And it says at one PM, the timer for your exam will not start until you are presented with the first question of your exam. It has an exam password, which I was afraid I was gonna have to memorize. Like, they were gonna make me look at the paper, memorize it, go into the exam center and type it in, but they actually typed it in for me. It says that it's a four hour exam and then it has exam driving directions to the exam center, which are like insanely good directions.

And it even tells you about the parking situation and that you can park at the building and it's free. Then it gives a link to one of the sample exams. And the sample exam is to show you what the structure of the exam platform is going to look like. It is not CPC or medical coding related.

It is literally just to show you what the platform looks like. So I would encourage you to take a look at it so that you feel more comfortable on your exam day. Next, it goes over the requirements for things like your photo ID. It says you have to submit your confirmation notice, this paper, to your proctor.

You're supposed to print it out. We'll talk more about that. And you have to have a government issued photo ID. And the name on your photo ID has to exactly match what is registered with your voucher, meaning what is on your AEPC account.

So for example, my name's Victoria. If I had on my AEPC account, Vicki, I could potentially get kicked out of that exam because my name does not match my government issued ID. It states you will not be admitted without proper identification.

It will be considered a no show and you will forfeit the exam fee. Original documents are required. Nicknames are not acceptable and you can't bring name change documentation, like a marriage certificate or something to prove that your name changed. It has to match what's on your government issued ID and you have to come on time.

Then the email gets into the general instructions. It says cell phones are not permitted at the exam site. Any candidate with a cell phone in the exam room will be dismissed from the exam room immediately and denied reentry. Smoking is not permitted.

Food and beverages are not permitted in the exam room. Personal items are not allowed in the exam room, and it says that they have to be left outside of the exam room at your own risk. Friends, relatives, and children are not allowed in the exam room. You can't wear cologne, perfume.

Bring earplugs if you are sensitive to ambient noise. If you choose to bring earplugs, they will be subject to examination.

Computer based testing facilities offer exam services to multiple agencies. So there's going to be people that are taking different exams from all kinds of different industries, not just APC medical coding exams. And it warns you that they might have different things at their station. So they might have paper and pencils. And then it tells you that computer based tests are delivered via secure internet. And that if at any point in time, the internet loses connection, let your proctor know, and they'll be able to assist you. And that you are strictly prohibited from attempting to access any outside information programs or websites while testing.

I did encounter that during my exam, because I think it looked like when I clicked on certain things, it was trying to go to an external link on Codify and it let me know that that was blocked. Now here are the list of prohibited items.

Cameras, cell phones, optical readers, any other electronic device that has the ability to photograph, photocopy, or otherwise copy test materials, notes, books, dictionaries, or language dictionaries, except as expressly permitted by the exam sponsor. So with medical coding exams, obviously, we're allowed to take our books so that those books you're allowed to take, your CPT, ICD ten centimeters, HCPCS, etcetera. You cannot take book bags or luggage, purses or handbags, iPods, m p three players, tablets, headphones, pagers, calculators, unless it says so in the specific exam that you're taking, computers, PDAs, or other electronic devices.

No personal writing utensils, such as pens, pencils, highlighters. You cannot take Google or any smart glasses, and then it actually later on specifies that candidates wearing glasses may be asked to give them to the proctor for inspection. No glasses with electronics, even if they have prescription lenses, will be permitted in the exam room. So if you're thinking, oh my god, that's crazy, they might examine my glasses.

Here's let me tell you why. So these bad boys are actually my Ray Ban Meta smart glasses. These are sunglasses. I actually took them to a trip to Disney recently so I could kind of hands free take photos.

When I put them on, they automatically connect to my phone via Bluetooth. So I can use these as speakers. I can take phone calls with them. And if I press this little button over here, it takes a photo.

I just took a photo. And if I hold down this button, it will take a video, and you might not, depending on what the lighting's like, even be able to see the little light that goes on to let you know that I'm recording. It also live streams directly to Facebook. So I could set up a private Facebook account and live stream there.

And the reason I bring this up is because when you look at these glasses close-up, it's kind of hard to tell that there's lenses on there. They're very much round dots. One of them is the light to indicate that it's recording and the other is the lens. So there's a lot of glasses that you'll see that have just little bolts and things there on that corner.

So they do have to inspect to make sure that they are not in fact lenses.

And although mine are sunglasses, they also come in clear, they come in transitions and you can also have them fitted for prescription. So you can imagine how these bad boys would very easily compromise an exam. You're also not allowed to take any watches, smart devices and other jewelry except wedding or engagement rings. Obviously, you're not allowed to take weapons, medicine, including cough drops, except as expressly permitted in advance.

Can't take food and beverages. No coats and jackets. Hats, hoods, other headwear are not permitted. You are allowed to wear religious headwear, and everything is subject to inspection.

And it says to please note that sweaters and sweatshirts without pockets or hoods are allowed to be permitted. So I am a hoodie girl. I love a good hoodie. Actually, this shirt that I have on is a hoodie shirt and it's my personal fave right now. So I scrambled and just found whatever sweatshirt I could find and put that on because it was January and cold. And then it just continues on about the security of the exam, how important it is, what to do if you can't find the exam center, what to do if there's an emergency.

And then there's an indication here about environmental distractions, rescheduling. More importantly to me, though, inclement weather. There is a website that you can check to see if there are closures due to inclement weather. And it just so happened that the day that I scheduled my exam, we had a snowstorm.

All of the schools in the tri state area were closed. They reduced the speed limit on the highway, but when I checked the major website worth the closings, none of the exam centers in my area were listed as closed. Obviously, I was not about to risk life and limb in my little tiny Kia Soul driving out to the exam center. So I essentially forfeited my exam.

The next day, I sent an email to Azure and I said, hey, I have two exam attempts. I'm not sure kinda what happens now. I wasn't able to come because of the snow. And they said, hey.

The AAPC, likes to handle these directly with the inclement weather and the closings of that, so contact them. Now the next day, I was just kind of busy with a lot of things, but I didn't get around to contacting the AAPC immediately.

But the very next day, I wound up getting this email going, hey, here's your candidacy for your exam, and here's where you can go to schedule a new one. So I'm still not sure if they reissued the original one and considered it a snow emergency, so I don't know if the exam attempt I rescheduled with was still my first attempt or my second attempt. Now previously with the exams, they were hosted by local chapters. And if there was inclement weather, the chapter officers, if the exam center was closed or they determined that it would not be suited to have that exam, they had to go through the listing of all the examinees and contact them.

So a lot of chapters that were in winter weather areas were more reluctant to host exams in the winter months. With the exam centers, we don't have that issue now, and they are just such more abundance of availability of when you can take your exam. Now the next week I was away. I am a snowbird in training.

So, of course, I was in Florida for the week to get away from the winter weather.

But I did reschedule. You have to schedule forty eight hours in advance, so you can't schedule, like, the next day. It has to be a couple of days in advance. But I did schedule it. I then took a look at the weather forecast ahead of time to make sure it looked like it was going to be a clear day.

And I printed out my exam paper. You're supposed to print this and take it with you. I don't know if the exam centers have protocol then for like, if you have it on your cell phone or what they do, but I printed it out because the instructions said to print it out. Based off of the instructions, I packed very light.

I wore my sweatshirt and I took a small bag where I had my phone, my ID, my credit card, some cash, and then a protein bar and a pocket coffee in case I need a snack or an energy boost after the exam. I locked everything except for my ID card in my glove compartment, which in retrospect, I actually didn't need to do. And if I had have just called the exam center and confirmed some things with me, they would have probably easily clarified that I'm sure they have nervous test takers all day calling with questions. When I got in there with my things, they told me that anything I was not permitted to take at the exam room, I could actually lock in a locker.

And that actually included these printed instructions because they don't want you taking paper with you into the exam center. I did attempt to bring with me a bottle of water. I left, you know, the big bad boy in the car, but I did bring a bottle of water. And I said, hey, can I take this in the exam center?

And they said, no. But you are welcome to lock it in your locker. And I said, okay. Well, if I get a little cough or a tickle as I'm taking my exam, I said, do I just come out here, unlock my locker and get my water bottle?

They said, Yep, that's fine. So if you are someone who you're like, oh, my God, you know, I can't stand the thought of going four hours without taking a drink or having something with me. It seems like the exam centers have thought of that they do this all day every day. I asked them if all the exam centers have lockers, and they said a good amount of them do.

But since they're all kind of structured differently at different locations, they might have different setups. So I don't know if maybe some of them have cubies or a table or somewhere else to store your belongings. But I could imagine that a lot of them would have some kind of similar structure where there is a room that where you take the exam, but outside of that, you can store your belongings appropriately. Again, if you're unsure, like, where am I gonna put my car keys?

Where am I gonna put this or that? Contact your exam center and just ask them. They seemed very willing and accommodating. Like, they seemed like they wanted to be very supportive of the examinees that were coming to their center.

And one of the cool things was it really didn't take long for my exam to start. They did take my books and check them.

You can see I have all of my books tabbed because I was doing tabbing demonstration videos. So they are all tabbed. They had no problems with the tabs.

They said to you know, I wasn't allowed any pencils to write any notes. And interestingly, they said if you have notes in your book, you also can't erase any of the notes that you have in your book during the exam. Book check and starting the exams took so much less time. You guys so much less time. So let's talk a little bit about the prior exam day process.

Before we had the exam centers, it was on volunteers, the local chapters to host the exam, to find a site, to schedule it, to put it up on the website. And one of the proctors had to receive the exams. So since most people were working years ago on-site and they needed it assigned to delivery person, they would have to send them to work. Sometimes boxes would get lost.

It was stressful. The proctors would have to take the stack of all of the paper exams and the test grids to the exam centers, divvy them out, check everyone's ID, check their books. It was a long process. There was a little bubble grid.

And if you had someone in your exam room that didn't know how to, like, fill in a bubble grid appropriately or check their sticker, you know, and they were frantic because it's a stressful exam for some people, it would hold you up. So even if you were like, oh, here's my member ID and my name and I'm done, you had to wait for everyone else in the exam room to be ready. And you had to wait for the proctors to go around and flip and check thirty some odd, possibly people's, even more, books. And then the proctors had to collect everyone's exams and then put them in a folder and then send them out to FedEx.

And if it was like a Saturday, maybe FedEx was closed. They couldn't ship them out till Monday, and maybe they didn't do it until later. And then people would be asking questions online, like, I don't know if they sent me an exam. Did everyone get there okay?

Did it get you know, some people would send the tracking numbers to their examinees. Other people wouldn't. And then we would have to wait for the EPC to get them, and then they sit on someone's desk, and they'd have to go through the Scantron, and then go to the electronic. So it would take a while to get your exam results.

And there was a lot of factors in there, a lot of things that could potentially go wrong. So it took almost no time for me to present, check my ID, check my book. Okay. Off you go.

I didn't have to sit there and look at a sticker and be like, let me fill in my mobile grid with my member ID number. Now I was once proctored at an exam where someone arrived and did not have books with them. So I don't know if they have protocol for if you show up and don't have books, if they still let you take the exam or not, if they have to make sure that you have the books that you're required to have. And this isn't an exam center for the AAPC.

This is an exam center for a lot of different exams. So they're not gonna have books for you to borrow. And they are not using ebooks, so you can't use ebooks, log in to ebooks, have access to ebooks during the exam currently either. So once I was all checked in, they walked me over to a computer at a desk and I sat there and they logged me in and I took the exam.

The room itself kind of reminded me of when I was in high school and they would put me in in school suspension, and I had to sit in one of those little cubicles with the little dividers in there. I mean, I'm sure they were used for things other than in school suspension, but that's what I had to use them for. I had just enough room to have my CPT book open and then have my ICD book next to it. So when I kind of like measured it out afterwards, it looked like when I measure like my open CPT book, ICD next to it, and then have a couple spaces, it was maybe thirty inches.

And again, all exam centers are different. So you might have a very different layout. Maybe you have a table at yours. I don't know.

But based on, like, a little sticky note that they had given me and was attached to my ID, it looked like it said on there that I was allowed to have extra room. So the lady who, walked me back, she was so, so nice. Wonderful.

Let me have an extra chair, and the cubicle next to me, I guess, was had to remain empty. So I did have space on a chair next to me to set my extra books. I really honestly, that was all that I need. I don't need the whole world to bend to Victoria's whim of how she would love to spread out her coding books in the ideal world. It was really fine. No one else in the exam room had codebooks, so no one was taking any AAPC exams, which was nice.

You know, it can be intimidating if you're taking an exam with lots of other people who are taking the same exam and you are like, oh my gosh, they're finishing before me. They look like they're using a different strategy. I hope I do well. Oh my God. I think I know that person from work. You know, that element is now totally taken away. Other people in the exam room had like headphones on because they were maybe taking exams where they heard something and had to respond to it.

The cubicle next to me did have scrap paper and pencil, which is not permitted for AAPC exams. So I did not touch it, but there was some in the exam room. Again, AAPC exams, you're not allowed to take scrap paper. You are not allowed to take writing instruments, highlighters, anything like that. Nothing other than like your ID in your books. On the desk, they had a little package of prepackaged sealed earplugs.

Noise level, there was a couple of times where it got a little bit noise. I could hear, like, muffled conversations on the other side of the wall. I don't know if that's because it was in an office building and the office adjacent to them when someone was having a conversation, but absolutely nothing crazy. There was a monitor and a pull out keyboard tray and a mouse.

The monitor was a a fair size. It wasn't a gigantic monitor. It was a fair size monitor, and it had a split screen. So on one half of it was the question, and then the other half was all of the, like, the note that maybe I was answering questions based off of.

And then there was different tabs that I could open and close. And then I figured out I can actually pop those out. There's like a little button on the corner that you can use to pop those out. So if I needed to pop out the calculator and drag it over, I could do that, or the E and M calculator.

So for my exam, they did have the AEPC's E and M calculator in there, and it's the same one that they have on their website. So I will link that below so that you can see what e and m calculator tool you will have access to because you're not allowed to bring any sheets or grids or anything like that for the exam. They are embedded in your exam platform. You are able to flag questions and go back to them.

You're able to skip questions. You're able to go like, there was a button. It was a little hard to find it at first, but once I got it, I'm like, oh, yeah. Obviously, this is, what I need to click, and it brought up all the different questions, and I could skip around.

If I missed a question, it's like, oh, hey. Do you still wanna progress? Like a pop up popped up and said, hey. Do you still wanna progress?

You you didn't answer this question. Honestly, watch the tutorial video and don't feel weird about clicking around on things Because in the medical billing and coding field, you're gonna have to get familiar with EMRs. And that means you're gonna have to get familiar with maybe clicking some things that you're like, I think this is the right button. And you you just gotta develop that comfort level.

All of the questions were multiple choice. There were zero fill in the blank questions. Again, the AAPC is gonna let us know ahead of time if they're gonna add in fill in the blanks. Since the study materials for twenty twenty four didn't have practice exams with fill in the blank questions on them, I was not anticipating that twenty twenty four would be the year that they would just add in fill in the blanks.

Then when I was done, I submitted all of my questions, walked out, they checked me out, and that was pretty much it. I started my exam at one o'clock, finished at three thirty, and got the results that I passed at five forty five. So comparatively, I much I love the exam centers. They are so so much better than the old process.

And honestly, if I take another exam and I have the option between the live remote proctor and the in person, I would rather take the in person. The live remote proctor, if you have one of those international proctors, it can sometimes be hard to hear them. And having to move the cameras around and worry if your Internet goes out, like, it oh my gosh. Just going to the exam center was a great process.

I know some locations it might be a drive, and I definitely respect the fact though that that is a consideration for a lot of people. In retrospect, I definitely would have called the exam center ahead of time and asked them, like, where I'm supposed to stash my stuff so that I would have had less anxiety about that. But overall, I was impressed. You could definitely tell the exam center that I went to wanted to be supportive to their exam centers, and I think they were appropriately fair.

I've heard of people telling me that, like, their medical providers were practically strip searched. I wasn't even padded down. I think it was very, very balanced and a positive experience. Thanks for joining me as I share my experience with the exam centers.

I really hope this video has helped provide you with some valuable insights and some tips so that you feel more prepared and confident on your exam day. And remember, the AAPC is dedicated to your success and is always available to support you through your certification journey. So if you have any questions or need further assistance, don't hesitate to reach out to the AAPC directly at one eight hundred six two six two six three three. They have an amazing team that's ready to help you with any questions you may have.

So best of luck with your studies and your exam.