This is your chance to find out what it's really like to be a medical coder. In this course, you'll learn exactly what medical coders do on a daily basis. You'll learn to use the CPT manual and the ICD-10-CM to find medical codes for any disease, condition, treatment, or surgical procedure, which will give you a leg up on other people who are new to this career. The knowledge you gain here will help you work almost anywhere in the medial field—doctors' offices, clinics, public health facilities, hospitals, labs, nursing homes, insurance agencies, or even the comfort of your own home.
As you explore a career in medical coding, you'll also explore each of the main systems of the human body—integumentary (skin), musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, endocrine, and male and female genitourinary—outlining the medical terminology, conditions, diseases, injuries, treatments, and procedures you will see most often in each of these systems.
Along the way, you will see numerous real-world examples and coding exercises to help you begin using your coding tools in conjunction with your analytical skills to come up with just the right choices to describe any medical situation. As you explore a career in medical coding, you'll get all the hands-on experience and knowledge you need to begin your career with confidence. Check it out, because this might just be a great career choice for you!
Jennifer Della'Zanna has more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry, having worked as a medical transcriptionist, practice administrator, biller, and coding specialist. She writes courses and study guides on the use of technology in health care and regularly contributes to publications about health issues. Della'Zanna is a member of the American Academy of Professional Coders and the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Albright College.
The instructional materials required for this course are not included in enrollment.
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Lesson 1
Medical Coding Basics
The first lesson explores the history of medical insurance and medical coding. After that, take a few minutes to get familiar with the coding books and tools that medical coders use. This lesson finishes up with an important discussion about patient privacy and confidentiality.
Coding in the Real World
In this lesson, you'll take a close look at how medical professionals use medical codes in the real world. Get to know the common form medical coders use and explore the different types of medical codes you will find in your coding books. By the time you finish the lesson, you will understand how the different types of codes come together on a claim and how they tell the insurance company a complete story about any doctor-patient encounter.
Getting to Know Your CPT Manual
In this lesson, take a detailed tour through the CPT manual where you will find medical codes for the procedures and treatments doctors and other medical professionals provide their patients. You will learn all about the CPT symbols, modifiers, and unlisted procedures. By the end of this lesson, you will be looking up your first codes!
Getting to Know Your ICD-10-CM
Similar to the last lesson, you will take a detailed tour through the other coding book used in this course, the ICD-10-CM, which is where you will find the codes for any disease, illness, condition, or symptom that a patient may have. You will learn all about the ICD-10-CM's symbols, formatting, and other conventions; and you will learn where to find external cause codes and Z-codes. By the end of this lesson, you will begin to practice coding diagnoses.
Coding the Integumentary System
Starting with this lesson, you'll begin a series of lessons that take you in depth into one body system at a time, which will help you understand specific medical coding situations for each area of the human body. This lesson explores the integumentary (skin) system. You will review the code categories for the most common skin conditions, infections, injuries, and procedures, and then practice coding cases that involve common skin problems.
Coding the Musculoskeletal System
In this lesson, you will learn all about the musculoskeletal system and study some important musculoskeletal vocabulary. Review the code categories for the most common muscle and bone conditions and injuries and learn how to code the procedures doctors use to treat common problems.
Coding the Respiratory System
This lesson focuses on the respiratory system, and how to code the most common respiratory conditions and injuries. After that, you will practice coding the most common respiratory procedures that doctors use on their patients.
Coding the Cardiovascular System
In this lesson, you'll explore the cardiovascular system. You'll learn how to code common heart, vein, and artery conditions and diseases and how to code the procedures doctors use most often to treat these common diagnoses. As always, this lesson follows up on cardiovascular diseases and procedures with coding practice.
Coding the Digestive and Endocrine Systems
In this lesson, you will learn all about the digestive system and the endocrine system. Begin by studying some important vocabulary for both systems, and then review the code categories for the most common conditions, diseases, and injuries. After that, explore the procedures doctors perform to fix digestive and endocrine system problems.
Coding the Male and Female Genitourinary Systems
In the last of your system-specific lessons, you will review the male and female genitourinary systems; and learn how to code common conditions, diseases, and procedures for both systems. You will also spend time discussing maternity and childbirth and the special medical coding challenges you will need to consider in those cases.
Evaluation and Management (E/M) Codes
Ready to get to know Evaluation and Management codes? In this lesson, you will learn the three key components of any E/M service and discover some helpful charts you can use to narrow down an E/M code range to a final E/M code. And as you probably guessed, this lesson ends with plenty of E/M coding practice!
Surgical Packages and Modifiers
In the final lesson, you will find out what's included in a surgical package and what's not. You will also learn all about modifiers and find out why medical coders use them to let insurance companies know about special circumstances. Finally, you will put everything you've learned throughout the course together by coding some practice scenarios that incorporate all of the different types of codes!
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