Online Coding Courses for Medical Coding Certificate – Video

Laureen: Q#4: I have heard that if you fail the ICD-10 exam you will lose ICD-9 CPC certificate, is this true?

Alicia: No.

Laureen: A: No. They really just want you to demonstrate that you have touched the ICD-10 codes and that you’re familiar with them. It’s a professional credential and a CEU isn’t enough to say that you have proficiency in this new coding system. By doing this 75-question or 150-question proficiency assessment that’s basically that seal of approval. They give you multiple times to pass it. If you don’t pass it the first time they don’t yank your credential. Yes, you’ll have to pay again to take it again, but I think you get two tries for one fee.

Alicia: Yeah.

Laureen: There’s no indication on the website that they will limit how many tries you do before they take any credential.

Alicia: I’d like to really quickly address, now they’ve come out and said you can take a 150-question proficiency exam at your own pacing to take like a year, something like that. I personally don’t think that’s a good deal. It’s only 75 questions, they’re not that hard, you get to take it more than once and I would say, “Do it and get it over with. Don’t do at your own pace.” I mean you took it a course –

Laureen: Yeah. These are the two choices. Yeah.

Online Coding Courses for Medical Coding Certificate – Video

Alicia: Yeah. You get a course but you have to do 150 questions and it is unlimited attempts but for $60 you get to take it twice, and honestly guys it’s not that hard. It’s not that scary. If you can code an ICD-9, you can code an ICD-10 with an ICD-10 manual and just pay attention to the details. I wouldn’t be going and investing a whole bunch of money into ICD-10 to pass the exam by being scared and trying to take the 150-question exam over a year. That’s too much pressure. It sounds easier but it’s not.

Laureen: I have lots of ICD-10 questions here.

Q#5: For those preparing for the exam for ICD-10, what should be the main focus on preparing to study for the exam? We need to know what direction to go?

A: Guidelines, guidelines, guidelines, and that’s –

Alicia: Only about the guidelines.

Laureen: That’s really the key. If you can read the ICD-10 guidelines and they’re available on the internet. If you just Google “ICD-10 official guidelines” it’s in a PDF and you can basically become very proficient by studying that document. Our ICD-10 mini course and full course go over the guidelines, obviously. The full course goes over into great, great detail. The mini course is pretty much all about the guidelines. It’s not going into more in-depth than that.

Our Blitz is going to be definitely just the guidelines. We’re going to be hitting the highlights that we feel that you’ll be tested on, on the proficiency assessment. Those are the three levels of intensity that we have at CCO; but basically the guidelines is really what you need to become proficient at.

By the way, the AAPC exam is on the CM portion only, not PCS. It’s not the procedural part of ICD-10 it’s just the clinically modified with the diagnostic portion of ICD-10.

Q#6: For ICD-10-CM/PCS should we already prepare our code set with bubbling technique? Will we have time to make proper notes in our books? Is two-day recordings included in seminar fee?

A: Oh, OK. People really know our style, don’t they? I forgot to mention that when we do the live two-day blitz, as a bonus you will get access to the recording afterwards and a 50 or 60 questions. I can’t remember how many questions practice exam for ICD-10. It’s really a great package, plus you get me and Alicia.

Alicia: Woohoo!

Laureen: If you’ve seen the recent email that Lisa sent out with our little cartoon bodies – I wish my body looked like thatAlicia: I do too [laughs]

Laureen: It’s not going to be – the bubbling and highlighting technique we used mostly for CPT. We do do notes in our diagnostic manuals, but I wouldn’t say it’s as prevalent as with CPT. It’s mostly making notes in your manuals that’s going to jog your memory about the guidelines. Quite honestly,[ ICD-10] out of the box does a great job at that. When you use the index properly you were led to the correct notes. If you read the exclusion notes you’re prevented for making a coding mistake. If you read the notes about what you should code also and sometimes it’ll tell you what order to code it in. Just be obedient little coders and follow what ICD-10 tells you and you’ll do very well with it.

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