What is Advanced Medical Coding?

What is Advanced Medical Coding?

"From the December 2012 Coding Certification Q and A Webinar": Free for all! Get CEU's!"

We had a quick question in the chat I thought you could answer. I think you had mentioned in your previous blip about advanced coding. They want to know what you meant by advanced coding.

Alicia: Oh well, at the college, what they did was they had students that were in different medical fields. And so they took a basic coding ICD9 and CPT and did a little bit in HCPCS. But if they were going to coding as a specialty, they took advanced coding. And then that actually was not just diagnosis coding you know, where they gave you statements where you looked at a chart and said, “Oh, I need a code for hypertension.” You know, if you were working in the medical field and someone said, “I needed a code for hypertension” then they could look it up and say 401.9.

But if you’re in advanced coding then you’re actually coding charts and op reports and you really get into the guidelines, things like what goes with Peripheral Vascular Disease… you know, what conditions, how do you code first, like the questions that we just did with cancer coding ad things.

You really know the guidelines and you’re usually going to sit for the CPC exam. Basic coders don’t usually get a certification, an advanced certification like a CPC exam or CCS. So it’s more detailed, kind of like… it would be like what we do at CCO. That course is an advanced coding course because it’s instructing you on how to pass the exam and code in the real world.

Laureen: Thank you, ma’am. And Anna says, “Alicia, I love your enthusiasm.”

Alicia: I’m always enthusiastic when it comes to coding.

[dalejrfan]

The advanced coders need to add moifiers to overide authorizations such as going to an ER and adding a modifier to an MRI or if I had 2 MRI's of the hip, I have a left side and right side.