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Alicia: CPMA CEUs
Q: This is a question for the monthly question and answer webinar. I am scheduled to take the CPMA exam in December and wondered how difficult it is to find CEUs to keep the accreditation. Thanks.
A: This is something to consider, it’s very smart of you to be proactive and think about that, but let me tell you it’s not going to be as bad as you think. For one thing, anybody that teaches a specific credential, has a course in that credential is going to offer CEUs in it, at least if they’re a good program. We, in fact, have CEUs that you can use for that, and you bet you we’re going to have a lot more in the near future.
Laureen: You betcha!
Alicia: You betcha! That’s what they say up North.
Now, you can always get CEUs as general CEUs. We have lots of CEUs, we have the Modifier CEU package that Laureen wrote, the E/M CEU package that she wrote, and then we have On-Demand CEUs as well as the CEUs that we all mentioned at the beginning of the course, like, the MTA is 40 CEUs. It wouldn’t be a specialty but it would be a general CEU for sure.
Now, this is what you need to know: Maintaining Certification – Membership is required to be renewed annually and every two years you have to turn in your CEUs. There’s a tracker on the AAPC website for you.
Laureen: And you’re not turning in the physical CEU certificate, you need to hold that in case you’re audited, you’re just basically submitting those index numbers as you go along so they’re kind of in pending mode. And then when you’re ready, to say, “OK, my two years is up. I’m submitting these to satisfy my maintaining my credential.”
Alicia: Right. Mine is due in October, my renewal for the year. I have more CEUs than I need and I can hit the button and submit them now at anytime, these little pop-up tells me that it’s alright to submit your CEUs now. And I have a hard copy of all of my CEUs, which I was trying to see if I have… I keep them in a folder in a little sleeve and I have been audited the very first year that I became certified, I was audited. So, it doesn’t matter if you’re new. There’s no rhyme or reason how they check you.
Certified Professional Medical Auditor CEU’s – Physical CEU Certificate – Video
But this is what you need to have. If you have one certification you’re going to get 36 CEUs every two years. And here’s the specialty so that CPMA 24 must be related to auditing. But look down here: Effective 10/1/2014 a new policy of CEU requirements. I tried to make this bigger, guys, I pulled it from the AAPC website and it didn’t let me make it bigger but I can take you to the AAPC website.
Laureen: It’s good. We can see it good.
Alicia: Can you see it?
Laureen: But it’s good to show them how to get there so they can do it on their own.
Alicia: Yeah, that’s true. Go to certifications. Click on “Continuing Education” and you just hover over these and they just pop up. Say, you want to find certifications in your area then you just come in here and say, “OK, a specialty, I’m a CPMA,” you’d put here. You can put in your zip code. Let me just do this for you real quick. Let’s say CPMA, which I am going to test for in the very near future, and 63105. Very impressive zip code, let me tell you ladies and gentlemen. And I’m poor; I live at the seminary, so therefore I get to be in a very affluent area. I didn’t know how popular that zip code was until someone informed me of it.
Then, I get to look down here and what all these credentials are good and the dates where they are at 50… See I can go to Illinois, I’m right there on the cusp of it. And there’s online, a webinar. Then, look, no prices, local chapters. All these local chapters are doing stuff where you can get free CEUs. We offer free CEUs. When you come to this every month, the webinars that we do, you’ll always get a general CEU, but we’ve had specialties in the past. This month we didn’t actually have the specialties, but I think we have for the last three, we have had specialty. That’s important to know.
Laureen: So, the color coding under credentials that matches up with the core credentials?
Alicia: Yes. See there’s an “approved for CPPM” the one that Jo-Anne is teaching, and then CPMA. So, this is all specialties here, is going to get this in that local chapter. It’s a big deal for them to do that, they have to request and prove that they have got content. So, this tells me that Bangor, Maine has a pretty impressive chapter; they’re on the ball.
Laureen: And CCO is under the “Other Vendors” tab because we’re not with AAPC.
Alicia: Correct. We’re “Other Vendors.” Continuing Education, say, “Well, I can’t remember how many I need to have.” Well, go to “CEU Help” under “Continuing Education” and that little thing that I copied and pasted, it was from this little area right here. This is the one, but then it says, “Oh, guess what, there’s been a change.”
The number of CEUs due every two years as follows: for one core or specialty credential, 36. Now come down here and say you’ve got the CPMA and your CPC as well. So, 40 CEUs for two credentials (8 in specialty if one is specialty, CPMA); so you have to have 40 every two years but you got to get 8 in the credential there.
Laureen: So, there’s letting you let them overlap. You don’t have to have 24 plus 24 plus 24. You just need to make sure they’re spread out a little bit. And the tracker will prompt you.
Alicia: Yeah. This is the way it was before, 36. If you have the CPMA, but 24 of those had to be in auditing, and if you had two credentials you had to get 48. Anyway, it’s interesting and this is where you find straight from the horse’s mouth how many you need. But ultimately, if you struggle with finding CEUs, there are lots of paid places to get CEUs. We offer very inexpensive CEUs, in my opinion, and we offer free CEUs; there’re a lot of free CEUs out there.
So yeah, don’t let that bother you but it was very smart of you to think of that and consider that as something that you need to look into.