If I were you I’d take a practice exam like in this book and if you get an 85% or higher then you are ready to take the real thing.
CPC Coding Exam Review 2012: The Certification Step, 1e

Either way I would get the review videos if I were you. They give you lots of tips on how to pass the CPC exam in addition to reviewing key concepts you will be tested on.
Review Blitz Videos

Best wishes to you!

Laureen Jandroep, CPC
Sr. Instructor, CodingCertification.Org

( Enclosed is the article)

Letter from the Chairman and CEO (Jan 2012)

Elimination of “A” Designation

The Apprentice designation is not needed anymore.

The National Advisory Board (NAB) has recommended, and the AAPC leadership team has discussed and agreed, that the Certified Professional Coder-Apprentice (CPC-A®) credential has outlived its usefulness. The objective of the apprentice (A) designation was to show others—primarily prospective employers—an individual had passed the CPC® exam, but did not yet have one or two years of on-the-job experience. Instead, it was too often preventing most CPC-As® from getting interviews for potential jobs and hurting their prospects.

We believe the résumé indicating the experience level of an individual should speak for itself. Whether the individual has great aptitude, a terrific work ethic, good people skills, or any other desirable attribute is often never discovered because an interview was unable to be obtained. While we still believe experience is needed to become a good coder, we think it should be the employer’s decision who to hire.

Accordingly, AAPC is accepting comments through Jan. 31, 2012 on the following proposal:

Effective July 1, 2012, the CPC-A® credential will no longer be granted. All current CPC-As® would have their “A” removed by doing one of the following:
Getting at least one year of on-the-job experience no later than Dec. 31, 2013 (helpful to those with a job and currently working towards that end), or
Successfully passing a clinical exam consisting of coding 20 operative/office notes
Thus, no current CPC-A® would be “grandfathered” into the CPC® credential.
Those taking the CPC® exam after July 1, 2012 will have two ways to get their CPC® credential.
They can have one year of coding experience prior to taking the CPC® exam (proof given at time of exam application), and then pass the CPC® exam, or
They can pass both the current CPC® exam and clinical exam by successfully coding 20 operative/office notes. On-the-job experience after taking the CPC® exam will not be required.
It does not matter in which order the two exams are taken; if lacking prior experience, both are required to become a CPC®.
The pass rate for the CPC® exam will stay the same and a 90 percent pass rate on the clinical exam will be required. The 90 percent will be determined by correctly coding 18 of the 20 notes (and most will require multiple codes). The clinical exam will not be multiple choice; it will be free form and hand graded.
The clinical exam will include a sampling of office visits, surgical notes, evaluation and management (E/M) coding, ancillary services, modifier usage, and diagnosis coding.
The clinical exam would be taken at any AAPC proctored exam site. The same five hours and 40 minutes time restriction and code books will be allowed into this exam. If additional resources beyond code books are needed to properly code the notes, that information will be provided as part of the exam.
Both exams will be paid for at the same time and the cost for both exams will increase by $35. Applicants may still take each exam twice to pass it. If the examinee has one year experience, then he or she would pay only the CPC® exam price. If one exam is passed after two attempts, but not the other, then the fee for the exam not passed would be paid to re-take it.
Of course, current CPCs® are not affected by this change. As stated above, we would appreciate comments to this important change to our credentialing program through Jan. 31, 2012. You may go to www.aapc.com/cpc-acomment to submit your comment. From those comments we will either proceed ahead, make modifications that strengthen the change, or slow down the change due to legitimate concerns that AAPC has not properly considered.

Hi Alicia,

First of all please don’t panic. Changes always happen in the professions so you might as well get used to it . Per the letter from Reed in the January AAPC magazine this is a proposal – not a final decision – that was open for comment until yesterday. The final decision will be announced soon I’m sure.

The gist is if you have one year’s experience you take the regular CPC Exam as it is known today and earn the CPC credential if you pass.

If you don’t have the one years experience then you will need to take an additional “practical” exam.

If you are already a CPC-A you will need to submit proof of one years experience or take the new “practical exam”

The “A” has caused a lot of pain for new coders and I for one think this proposal is a good change. I especially respect the AAPC for asking for comments before rendering a final decision.

As far as CodingCertification.Org creating a prep for the new practical exam we have something in the works. We had already been planning this “advanced” coding course before this announcement. And fortunately it will be a perfect prep for this new “practical” exam.

I hope that helps. If you (or anyone reading this) has any questions please comment below and I’ll do my best to answer or find someone that knows the answer.

Happy Coding!

I have taken the CPC®  exam twice and failed twice. I completed an associates for medical billing and code through a school, but feel the program didn’t prepare us for the test. Nobody, in my graduating class has passed the exam. I’m not willing to just give up but I could use some idea/advice. Should I take the classes through this AAPC website and do you think they might better prepare me so I can pass? Does anyone know of anyone to tutors privatly…? I’m in Kansas city, though, so do you think my local chapter might beable to help me with a tutor? I just don’t know…where to go from this point. I’ve spent a lot of time on this and don’t want to just give up…I am working for a family practice doing ICD-9-CM coding, with a bit of CPT and HCPCS coding and I really enjoy my job but I need to pass the test…sooooo any ideas…on how I can get some help. 

2 questions:

1. Do you make it all the way through the test, or are you rushing through some at the end? And

2. Do you get intimidated by the really long operative note questions?

(If you answered ‘no’, then none of the following will be very helpful to you…but, my guess is that at least one of those is a yes)

Time management is a common pitfall that people encounter. They get freaked out by the sight of really long questions (or get bogged down reading them), and either put them off until the end, or struggle to understand what they’re reading until they run out of time. Or, they spend entirely too much time on questions that look easy, and aren’t. (If all of the code descriptions start to run together and sound the same, you have entered the ‘psych-out zone’)

This advice won’t help you become a better coder, but if you want to pass the test, try to do the following:

(*Remember this very important note: Short questions are not always easy, and Long questions are not always hard – in fact, most of the time, it’s the other way around. Never judge a question by its length!*)

When you start the test, skim through every question, and pick out the ones that you can see the answer to immediately (Like medical terminology, insurance/HIPAA questions, and stuff like that) – I’m talking about the really, really simple ones you don’t even have to open your book to answer.

After you’ve done that, you should give every question a shot – start at the front of the test, and work your way to the back.

If you try to look up an answer, and it takes more than a minute or two for you to feel confident about picking one, make a note of what you think it is (or isn’t), put a star on it, and move on. (A kitchen timer is really helpful for that) I realize it’s hard to ‘give up’ when you’re frustrated (and SO close to getting the answer!), but you have to force yourself to come back to it later.

• Don’t view it as ‘giving up’ on the question – you’re just ‘taking a break’ from it.

• Or, look at it as ‘I’ve already missed this one’…This sounds harsh, but the reality of the matter is: if you’re having a hard time making a confident decision, you’re probably going to end up missing it anyways (some of the questions seriously are just really hard - but there aren’t a lot like that – they’re randomly scattered throughout the test.)

• Don’t waste valuable time that you could be using to answer 5-10 other questions right, trying to answer one you might end up missing anyways; you can always come back to it and give it another shot after you’ve answered everything else.

I can’t stress this enough (especially for the CPT questions like the ones attached):

DO NOT READ THE QUESTION UNTIL YOU’VE CHECKED OUT ALL OF THE ANSWERS FIRST!!!

I know that’s counter-intuitive – you’re hard-wired to read the questions first, from years of taking tests in school – going all the way back to grade school…(Remember standardized reading tests?)

Trust me on this: you really have to make a conscious effort to NOT do that. Here’s why (I learned this from my own experiences):

1. You’ll waste a ton of time reading irrelevant filler that’s put in there, just to screw with you.

2. All of the jargon (especially on the surgeries) is overwhelming, and you’ll get hung up on words that don’t matter.

3. Many of the questions can be answered without reading the note at all (I’ve given examples on the stuff I attached) – reading the note makes it harder than it needs to be.

With CPT coding in particular, your goal is to answer questions through the process of elimination, by looking for the similarities and differences between the choices, and then looking for keywords in the question to narrow down your choices, or pick the right answer.

I gave a couple of examples to show how easy these questions can be, if you look at them the right way. At the end of the day, it’s a multiple-choice test, and all multiple-choice tests boil down to having good test-taking skills (and not so much really knowing the material, although it definitely helps…).

(In case you’re wondering, I made this for the co-workers I’m tutoring – today, actually – I don’t usually just have this stuff handy waiting for someone to need it)

__________________

Brandi Tadlock, CPC, CPC-P, CPMA, CPCO

1. Spastic colon – The first word can often be used to describe someone who is scatterbrained. But did you know that it also has medical implications? When a colon is spastic, it can be an umbrella term to describe everything from pain, constipation, diarrhea, and more.
2. Cardiac tamponade – The first word refers to the heart and the second to a feminine hygiene product. The entire term means a condition in which there is a buildup of blood or other fluid in the heart.
3. Cul-de-sac – In regular speak, it is where a street dead ends and there are a row of houses there. In medical speak, it is slang for the g-spot.
4. Frog leg – It isn’t a weird condition that can twist up someone’s legs. It is actually the term used when an x-ray or other image is taken of a leg from the lateral, or side, angle. Because the leg is often turned out, it is referred to as a frog leg.
5. Jail fever – You don’t have to be in corrections or have a high temperature to have this. It refers to an infection of bacteria that is spread by either or both lice and fleas.
6. Vally fever – It may sound like the latest prime-time soap, but it also refers to an infection. This one is contracted by breathing a certain fungus that grows in the dessert.
7. ICD-9 Code E845 – If you think there’s not a medical code for everything, check out this one. It is actually the code for someone who is hurt in an accident involving a spacecraft. It isn’t used commonly but has been thought to have been used more frequently back in the 60′s.

Casey Roberts is a student and also writes for Radiology Assistant which helps students find the right radiology degree.

Hello LAUREEN,

THANK you very much for your time on the phone yesterday.

Right now i need to make up time due to the wrong direction of the correspondence school.

I am cutting my ties with them.I want to get on track with the correct materials right away.

I would like your choice of textbooks, ICD9, HCPCS, CPT, ANATOMY, MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY that i can purchase from you to coincide with your blitz videos purchase for the CPC exam. Is it a good idea to purchase ANATOMY AND MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY used from AMAZON.COM since anatomy of the body doesnt change every year?

Anyway, i will get all the materials from you so i know everything is correct for the CPC certification exam.

Please email me all the information as soon as you are able.

Thanks,
DC

For your CPT manual I HIGHLY recommend the professional version (vs. the standard version) because it has more bells and whistles that you will actually use on the board exam. Here is a link to the one on Amazon.

For ICD you mentioned you were going to possibly be doing some inpatient coding training after getting your CPC, since that is the case I’d recommend you get the Version that has volumes 1,2 & 3. Volume 3 is used by inpatient hospital coders to code procedures instead of CPT. Having the extra volume won’t hurt you if you’re just doing physician based – you just won’t use it. Here is the link for the version I use currently:

For HCPCS you don’t need anything too fancy

BEST VALUE
For a combo package of the above three manuals here is the link (currently selling for $279.11)

Now as far as a good medical terminology and anatomy book you can go used but I’ve just reviewed a new book titled “Medical Terminology & Anatomy for ICD-10 Coding”. It is the only book I know of that is geared towards coders. We like it so much we are going to be offering a course using it as the main text starting March 1st, 2012. Here is the link on Amazon:

Thanks for this tip goes to Brandi B. who says she rents her books and manuals to take the exam as cheaply as possible. She recommends:

www.chegg.com and
www.bookrenter.com/

I tried searching on “medical coding” and found lots of books I recommend all the time. Check it out! Thanks Brandi!

TEKsystems, Leading IT Services and IT Staffing Solutions Provider

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Starting in 2012, paid purchasers of our products receive the Q & A webinar replays at no additional charge.

You can still access this webinar for a one time payment of $5.

In this January 2012 webinar Laureen answers YOUR questions. This included:

- For the CPC exam, I know I can’t bring scrap paper, but can I underline and write in my test booklet?
- Is it really necessary that I purchase the 2012 versions of the CPT. ICD-9-CM, and HCPCS for an up coming exam that I will be taking?
- Problems with essential and nonessential modifiers
- Differences between modifiers 51 and 59
- Are you a CEU vendor with the aapc?
- Can you code & charge for 2 breathing treatments (94640) on the same person if the same machine up is used and only code the additional meds involved in 2nd treatment?
- Is an E/M, splint application code (29000) & supply (99070) all billable codes when a splint is applied during a visit and no manipulation or further treatment is performed?
- Case Study: Patient has basal cell carcinoma his upper back. What procedure codes should be reported?
- Case Study: Determining the best code for a 24 year old patient had an abscess by her vulva which burst.
- and some more questions from the audience…

Tips to speed up flipping to codes faster in the manual to save time on the CPC exam?

Well for the ICD Manual, I’ll start with that. One of the frustrating things for me is I don’t think there’s any version of a manual out there that has the true Table of Contents. And most versions are volumes 1 and 2 and one spiral bound book. And if you’re into Inpatient Hospital Coding, you have 3 volumes in it and it’s very hard when you’re brand new at using it to figure out you know, where to even start.

So what I recommend to my students is that at the top of the manual, not on the sides, that they get those hard tabs and put them where all the main sections of their manual are. So obviously, where each volume starts when you have volumes 1 through 3.

For the Index to Diseases, there’s 3 main sections. A lot of people don’t even know that. You’ve got the Index to Diseases. You’ve got the Index to External Causes, the E Code at the end and in the middle, you’ve got a table for like Poisoning Codes and drugs and things like that.

So I would tab those 3 things. Some people will tab the Neoplasm table and the Hypertension table. You could do that but they’re in alphabetical order. And then as far as the tabular part of ICD, I wouldn’t bother doing too much tabbing there because you’re going to be looking up the answers in the book. And what you have to get good at and this is the same as CPT is just like a dictionary is look in the upper corners and I did make a copy of my CPT. But before I go on to that, don’t put tabs in the sides. It’ll slow you down.

The only thing that in the Tabular that I would tab is where your V codes start and your E codes because sometimes, you want to get to them you know, quicker. They are at the you know, end of the 17th Chapter there. But I find that I like to get to the guidelines to the V codes to read them and then that way it’s right there, V codes that I just flipped there.

One last thing that I like to tab and each year when I get my ICD manual is I like the condensed view of the Tabular section. It’s this close to getting to the table of contents in ICD that you can get and that is Appendix E in your Volume 1 of the Tabular. And it does not go to 4th and 5th digits level. It’s down to the category level. That’s 3 digits. And because ICD is a classification system, your codes have to sit in that category. So it gives you a nice overview.

Alright, so as far as CPT and ICD you know, when you’re flipping and you’re in the tabular… let me get to that point… I just picked these sample surgery pages. Okay so you want to look up. So on this left facing page, if you see the code range here, just like in the dictionary and I am guilty of this. I tend to go up and down, up and down and then it wastes your time. If you can really train yourself to look to see if your code is within this range or not and if it’s not, flip to the next page and keep going. Use these upper corners to help speed up your flipping to the book.

Another tip that I do especially for those taking the board exam, maybe not so much for everyday coding, because you’re going to the answers on the board exam, if you’re using my suggestion for op reports and surgery questions, don’t read the scenario until you look up the answers. If you can train yourself to do that and you take practice exams, you will see how much time that will save you.

So leg and ankle is this whole page. Now because I’ve just turned to this page because maybe my answer is 27814, I don’t know where I am. I have to start reading through it. If I look up, “Oh, leg and ankle.” Because actually, this category started a page or two before this one but I have to flip back to see what anatomical area I’m even in. I mean, I know it’s musculoskeletal but this tells me leg and ankle.

And then on the facing page, it says foot and toe. Now that, I grasp from here but I’m going to also have it on the following page because this red heading won’t be on the page. And I picked foot and toes because there are bones in the hands and bones in the feet that have the same name. And you can go to question where you have you know, the answer looks exactly the same. You’re like, “Wait a minute. What’s going on?” When you look up, it’s like, “Oh, this one’s at the foot, the other one’s at the hand. Now I know what to extract for in my blip or scenario or op report when I read it. I need to see if I’m dealing with a hand or a foot to begin with.” So that’s my suggestion for speeding up flipping to the codes faster.

Can you discuss CPT stents and cardiac cath coding?

Alright now this is an example of how I teach my review class and actually you know, my regular coding class is I teach with my manual. I have a document camera that’s pointing down on my book and I’m pointing it to the pages. I’m showing you how I marked up my book. It’s called bubbling and highlighting. And these are just some pages on 471 and 472 of the 2011 version and unfortunately for like stents and stuff, they don’t really have a nice header. They say, ‘Okay, here are the you know, the angioplasty codes.’ So what I did is I kind of make these notes down on the bottom and if that’s not showing up, just let me know, Boyd.

So… and there will be a recording of this video made and Boyd, as you probably… many of you already know, you’ll get lots of emails where it’ll say, “It’s ready, it’s ready!” And you can go click on it and review this and pause it and you know, copy these notes down.

So basically, I’ll show you all these bubbles but this is where we want to start here. I have 1, 2, 3 and the way I indented it is kind of key to understanding this as well. So you want to start by putting stents first and then indent it underneath of it. Number 2, your atherectomy and indent it underneath of that. Number 3, your PTCAs or your balloon angioplasty. Now you’ll see here, I wrote stents rule and that’s pretty much how I help my students to remember this is that the reason I put it in this little hierarchy is if you have a stent done and an atherectomy and a PTCA all in the same vessel, the stents rule and then the atherectomy and the PTCA is bundled into it. If you have an atherectomy and a PTCA of a same vessel, the PTCA is bundled into the atherectomy. You never have more than 1 code for any vessel in an operative session, okay? And that’s why I put here 1 code per vessel. Even if all 3 things were done to that same vessel, you’re going to have whichever one is considered the more complex and an atherectomy is more complex than a PTCA and stent is more complex than both of them.

Okay so let me show you the 3 different bubbles here. So I have bubble number 1 for stents and that’s right above it here. So that’s your 92980 and you can see it says Transcatheter Placement of Intercoronary Stent or Stents. Always be careful of your plurals in CPT. So again, we’re talking about one vessel. You can have 3 stents in that one vessel. You’re just going to have 1 unit of 92980.

Okay now my notes in the margin are Include Atherectomy and PTCA. That’s my reminder. And how do I know that? Because it says “With or Without other therapeutic intervention.” That’s what atherectomies and PTCAs are. They’re other therapeutic intervention. And then you have your add on code 9291: each additional vessel. So if you have you know, vessel A gets a stent and vessel B gets a stent then you’re going to have one unit of 980 and one unit of 981, okay? So that’s the stents rule bubble.

Number 2, the atherectomies unfortunately, have to go to the next page. They weren’t laid out very well for me in 2011 and hoping that 2012 book will be better. And here’s the atherectomies, 92995 and 92996 and you’ll notice that it has a bubble around it. It’s part of my bubbling and highlighting technique. And this one says: “Percutaneous transluminal coronary atherectomy”, so they’re removing the plaque, that’s what an atherectomy is. And here I wrote, ‘Includes PTCA” because it says, “With or without balloon angioplasty.” Okay and so then the 996 is each additional vessel.

So if you have an atherectomy and a stent, you code the stent. If you have an atherectomy and a PTCA, you code the atherectomy. One code per vessel.

Okay for our 3rd bubble, it’s the 92982 bubble and the 983 bubble, Percutaneous transluminal coronary balloon angioplasty: single vessel, PTCA. So this one’s bundled into the other tube. The only time you would ever code 92982 is if that was all that was done so that vessel in that operative session. If anything else is done, it’s going to be bundled into it. Okay so one code per vessel.

Now, the little twist to this that get everyone messed up initially, if you had a stent of vessel A and let’s say a PTCA, a vessel B, you actually have 2 vessels that were worked on so you should have 2 codes. So for vessel A, you’re going to have the 92980. That makes sense. Always take your higher value one and code it first. Everything else after that is going to be an add on code. So now, for vessel B that has a PTCA, we don’t code 92982. We have to code the add on code for that one, the 92… I said 3 before, the 92984, each additional vessel. And we can confirm that by looking the parenthetical note. It says, “Use it in conjunction with 92980” that’s the stent code. 92982, which makes sense as the PTCA code itself and 92995, that’s the atherectomy code. So even though a lot of times, we get in the mindset that add on codes can only be used with the code that it followed, that’s not true. 90% of the time, it is but there’s many instances where it’s not the case. So all subsequent vessels are an add on code. It might not be in the same bubble, okay? But that’s my little stent lecture. The stents rule, this is the hierarchy, one code per vessel, subsequent vessels are add on code. And I will try and do cardiac cath next call when I can scan those pages.