Basics about CPC Certification

To learn basic medical coding the professional should have well verse knowledge about anatomy and physiology of human body. Having perfect knowledge of human anatomy and physiology will help you in taking first step towards CPC certification. The CPT and ICD codebooks are the main players of CPC Certification exam. These codebooks always talk about codes which decodes into anatomy site of any human body which can be understood only when you have good anatomical knowledge of human body. Also, the CPT code book is arranged in such a way that it will be easy to find a code for coders during preparation for CPC certification exam. ICD codes are arranged alphabetically in index so for reading and understanding diagnosis codes which require anatomic and physiology knowledge. If you are good with CPT and ICD coding guidelines no one can stop you from clearing CPC certification exam.

Now, once you know in and out about human body, the coder can easily understand the medical report. For example, if a patient comes with a chest pain and the physician find a pulmonary edema as final diagnosis, so the coder can easily code pulmonary edema as Primary diagnosis code. So, if you are well prepared with basic knowledge about medical coding you can easily code a medical report with procedure code CPT and diagnosis code ICD.

Read also: How to Clear CPC Exam in First attempt.

What is CPC certification

Once you are very confident in medical coding you can go ahead for certification exams for medical coding. The most common to attempt an exam is CPC (Certified professional Coder) exam in the field of medical coding. After CPC certification you can easily get a nice job in hospital or healthcare domain to make a successful career in Medical coding. CPC certification is a must to have stable and nice growth in future. After CPC there are many coding exam to clear as you gain knowledge in this field. But, before you go ahead for certification I want to let you go through all resources of knowledge before appearing for this CPC exam. So let check out how to practice for CPC certification exam.You can get the best sample CPC exam guide here which will surely help in clearing this exam.

From 2022. the new exam pattern for CPC exam has been released. The new CPC exam will now have some Test cases as well in the question paper. These cases will be from different coding facilities and will check the coding knowledge of the coders in solving them. Ten cases with one multiple choice question per case will test your ability to accurately code medical record documentation using CPT, ICD-10-CM, and HCPCS Level II. The cases will cover 10000 series, 20000 series, 30000 series, 40000 series, 50000 series, 60000 series, medicine, anesthesia, radiology, pathology and laboratory, and evaluation and management services. Medical terminology, anatomy, compliance, and regulatory information may also be tested in the cases.

The CPC exam will now be consisting of 100 multiple-choice questions that assess 17 areas of knowledge. Coders must complete the CPC exam within 4 hours and answer 70% of the questions correctly to pass.

Knowledge Sources for CPC certification exam

First source of getting clear knowledge about this exam is AAPC website. AAPC organizes CPC exam at different centers all over the world in different countries every year.  AAPC (American Academy of Professional Coders) https://www.aapc.com/ here you can get all source of knowledge for different facility. There are discussion forums available which will help you clear your doubt and also you can post once you become an AAPC member. Also, we have AHIMA (http://www.ahima.org/) organization which organizes certification exams for medical coders, where you can get the lot of topics to learn about medical coding.

Next, there are different website where you can learn regarding updates in medical coding like

http://www.justcoding.com/

http://www.hcpro.com/

Here, you can get from basic to advanced training about medical codes, CPT codes and ICD codes. Also try to solve some CPC sample questions in required time.