Practicode AAPC vs CodingCertification.org | Practicode Reviews – Video

UPDATE: CCO no longer offers Practicode. Please visit the AAPC for access http://cco.pe/practicode

Alicia: Q: What is the difference in what the AAPC offers with Practicode reviews and what CCO offers? Asked Bobbie.

A: Well, it is quite a bit different. As you know, we’ve using PractiCode and offering that to our students for some time, and the AAPC is now offering it as well; but the way they’re doing it and the way we’re doing it is a little bit different.

So, let’s go in and look at this – Laureen was good enough to make this little graph, little spreadsheet. So, let’s start here, we have the AAPC PractiCode Module for Specialty. They’re offering three different ways to use PractiCode. The first one is the price difference for the module per specialty, and they have a CPC-A practicum, and they have a practicum with CEUs. The difference in those is different prices. So, if you’re just wanting to practice a specialty, say you want to practice oncology, then it’s $245; $195 if you’re an AAPC member. It doesn’t matter if you’re existing PractiCode user. You get 100 cases or 100 exercises in that specialty and only in that specialty. So, maybe you’re doing orthopedics or oncology, like I said, you get 15 CEUs and the cost per case that you do is $1.95.

Practicode AAPC Vs Coding Certification.org | Practicode Reviews – Video

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Let’s see, let’s scroll down here. There’s no assessment, it’s not in ICD-10. Let’s see, you fill out a form via application and you don’t get any support (so, you do it on your own), and they don’t discuss it in their forums.

For the practicum, for the AAPC, for the CPC-A, and what they’re doing for this is – do you want to get the “A” removed? Is what they’re offering at $299; member price it’s still a $299. Existing PractiCode users $199, exercises you get 600. So, you have to do all 600 to get your “A” removed, and then you don’t get CEUs, it’s about 15 cents a CEU. At 15 cents a case – I’m sorry, I told you wrong.

Let’s see, there’s assessment of three. None of them, the AAPC are going to offer an ICD-10. Again, you fill out a form, there’s no extra support, and they’re not going to talk about it in their forums. It’s about the same thing if you’re going to do that where you want to get the CEUs for the cases that you’re doing, that’s going to be $499, member price is the same. You get 600 cases only. The CEUs, they’re going to give you 15 CEUs, it ends up being about 83 cents case. And, again, there are four assessments, same thing – support and stuff.

So, we’re a little bit different in what we offer, it’s $299, and it’s a flat rate; whether you’re a member with us or not, it will always be $299. It doesn’t matter if you’re an existing PractiCode member. We have 2500 cases that you’ll have access to. In every specialty that PractiCode offers there is no CEUs offered. It breaks down to 12 cents a case. These are some of the specialties that you’ll get, and it would be probably for each specialty, it’s not 600, but it’s a lot for each specialty. I know there’s at least 150, I think. So, cardiology, emergency department, general surgery, orthopedics, professional fee, family practice/internal, medicine, inpatient, radiology, psychiatry, genitourinary, OB/GYN – I’m trying to see if I can scroll this smoothly, I guess not.

Now, notice that when you do inpatient, you’re going to get lots of cases in inpatient across the range. Assessments, it’s unlimited. You get a lot of assessments and we offer all of their ICD-10s. They have a lot of categories in ICD-10 and you have full access to those. You fill out a form via application just like they do, and we have a weekly support training call that you can come on Thursday nights 7 Central. Anyway, it’s on Thursday nights, and we give you a specific private forum access to discuss that with the community and ask questions and get help when you stumble across something that doesn’t feel right or you can’t quite figure it out yourself.

Alicia: That is correct, it is a course. So, that is different. We call it a practicum as well like they’re doing over here. I might mention, it’s great, the AAPC is offering a way for you to have the “A” taken off by doing this 600 cases, but just taking our coding courses that an 80-hour coding course knocks a year off. Here lately the tides are turning, they’re not caring if you’re a new coder or not. You have to be able to show your skill, and by doing a practicum like this and being able to print out how well you’re doing in any specialties you walk in with that; and I personally, if I was hiring somebody they can show me skill, I could care less how many years they’ve got behind them.

Boyd: My understanding is that the idea is to code by specialty until you get really good at it, you really can’t do that with the AAPC version.

Alicia:  That is true. So, it’s wonderful that they’re doing that and it’s great that they’re giving that extra practice and everything. I just think we go above and beyond because we give you access to everything PractiCode offers with all of the specialties and no extra price, and we give you support. So, you can come to us on the forum or in those Thursday night calls and discuss the cases individually. So, PractiCode has some great cases on specialties.

Find More Information about Practicode Reviews

Practicode and CodingCertification.Org Partnership Interview

Practicode by AAPC

practicode reviews

10 thoughts on “Practicode AAPC vs CodingCertification.org | Practicode Reviews – Video”

  1. I have a question and comment in regards to Practicode and getting the A removed from your CPC- A. Our family practice just hired a gentleman with ZERO medical experience who took this “Practicode” test to get the A removed and he has NO IDEA how to apply what he has learned into the “real world” of coding! He also informed me, that when doing this test, it DIDN’T matter what ORDER the ICD-9 and CPT codes were in as long as he chose the correct codes for the question he got it correct!!! Is this a TRUE statement???? Because of this, he is coding INCORRECTLY!!! example; a patient came in for a Physical and labs,with the labs the patient had existing diagnosis’ that were to be used and mapped with them. when he entered the claim in he put the E/M code as the LAST CPT code and the V70.0 again as the LAST ICD-9 code!!!! You, tell me that by learning to code the claim “CORRECTLY” simply because he knew what codes to use for the claim, but then to send the claim “INCORRECTLY” is someone you would WANT to HIRE???? If I’m missing something, PLEASE let me know! I would appreciate it if someone could let me know if this is truly how PRACTICODE works. Thank you, Leslie

    Reply
    • Hi Leslie,

      I can only speak to the CCO version of Practicode. I’d direct your questions to the AAPC directly or on their discussion boards at aapc.com.

      Keep us posted so we can advise our student graduates accordingly – thanks!

      Reply
  2. I have a question regarding the practicode.

    Do I need to do all 600 cases plus the 3’assessments to have my “A” removed, or can I do as many cases as I feel I need in each module, then take the assessment for those modules and be done? (As long as I pass the assessments)

    Reply
    • You are referring to the AAPC version of Practicode – our version has over 3000 cases that you can code by specialty for practice to become proficient at that specialty. Ours does not qualify for “A” removal – we asked but they said no :(. If you have questions about the AAPC version of Practicode I’d direct your questions to them.

      Reply
  3. AAPC gives you one year to complete the Practicode course. Is this the same through CCO, or is it an unlimited access for a lifetime at your own pace?

    Reply

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