Medical Coding
Take
your first step toward a lucrative career as a medical coder! In this course,
you'll learn how to use the CPT manual and the ICD-9-CM to find medical codes
for any disease, condition, treatment, or surgical procedure. This knowledge
will help prepare you to work almost anywhere in the medical field—doctors'
offices, clinics, public health facilities, hospitals, labs, nursing homes,
insurance agencies, or even the comfort of your own home.
We'll go through 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'll see most often
in each of those systems.
Along the way, we'll go through lots of real-world examples and coding exercises
to get you using your coding tools in conjunction with your analytical skills to
come up with just the right codes to describe any medical situation. In the
process, you'll get all the hands-on experience you'll need to code medical
insurance claims with confidence. By the end of this course, you'll know how to
find your way through both the CPT manual and the ICD-9-CM manual, and you'll be
well on your way to a career as a medical coder!
Course content © 2008 Portions by Penn Foster Inc. and Education To Go, a
Division of Cengage Learning, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or
redistribution of any course material without prior written permission is
prohibited.
To purchase this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
Requirements:
Internet access, e-mail, and the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla
Firefox Web browser.
You'll need access to both of the main medical coding books we'll use in this
course:
2008 CPT manual, Professional Edition
2008 ICD-9-CM, Physician Edition
The spiral-bound editions are recommended for both books. The 2007 versions are
also acceptable for this course.
No prior medical experience is required, but knowledge of medical terminology
and human anatomy will be helpful.
Syllabus:
All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two
lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do
not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each
lesson within two weeks of its release.
A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each
month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space
the start date for each course at least two months apart.
| Week One |
| Wednesday - Lesson 01 |
| In our first lesson, we'll explore the history of
medical insurance and medical coding. After that, we'll take a few
minutes to get familiar with the coding books and tools that medical
coders use. We'll finish up the lesson with an important discussion
about patient privacy and confidentiality. |
| Friday - Lesson 02 |
| Today we'll take a close look at how medical
professionals use medical codes in the real world. We'll get to know the
common forms medical coders use and explore the different types of
medical codes you'll find in your coding books. By the time you finish
this lesson, you'll understand how the different types of codes come
together on the claim form and how they tell the insurance company a
complete story about any doctor-patient encounter. |
| Week Two |
| Wednesday - Lesson 03 |
| In this lesson, we'll take a detailed tour through
the CPT manual where you'll find medical codes for the procedures and
treatments doctors and other medical professionals provide their
patients. You'll learn all about the CPT symbols, modifiers, and
unlisted procedures. By the end of this lesson, you'll be looking up
your first codes! |
| Friday - Lesson 04 |
| Similar to our last lesson, today we'll take a
detailed tour through the other coding book we'll use in this course,
the ICD-9-CM, which is where you'll find the codes for any disease,
illness, condition, or symptom that a patient may have. You'll learn all
about the ICD-9-CM's symbols, formatting, and other conventions; and
you'll learn where to find E-codes and V-codes. By the end of this
lesson, you'll begin to practice coding diagnoses. |
| Week Three |
| Wednesday - Lesson 05 |
| Today we'll begin a series of lessons that will take
us in depth into just one body system at a time so we can discuss
specific medical coding situations for each area of the human body. In
this lesson, we'll explore the integumentary (skin) system. We'll review
the code categories for the most common skin conditions, infections,
injuries, and procedures, and then we'll practice coding cases that
involve common skin problems. |
| Friday - Lesson 06 |
| In this lesson, you'll learn all about the
musculoskeletal system and study some important musculoskeletal
vocabulary. We'll review the code categories for the most common muscle
and bone conditions and injuries, and then you'll learn how to code the
procedures doctors use to treat common muscle and bone problems. |
| Week Four |
| Wednesday - Lesson 07 |
| Today we'll review the respiratory system, and you'll
learn how to code the most common respiratory conditions and injuries.
After that, you'll practice coding the most common respiratory
procedures that doctors use on their patients. |
| Friday - Lesson 08 |
| We'll explore the cardiovascular system in today's
lesson. You'll learn how to code common heart, vein, and artery
conditions and diseases, and then you'll learn how to code the
procedures doctors use most often to treat these common diagnoses. And
as we always do, we'll follow up our general discussion on
cardiovascular diseases and procedures with lots of coding practice. |
| Week Five |
| Wednesday - Lesson 09 |
| In this lesson, you'll learn all about the digestive
system and the endocrine system. We'll begin by studying some important
vocabulary for both systems, and then we'll review the code categories
for the most common conditions, diseases, and injuries. After that,
we'll explore the procedures doctors perform to fix digestive and
endocrine system problems. We'll end up the lesson with some practice
coding both systems. |
| Friday - Lesson 10 |
| In the last of our system-specific lessons, today
we'll review the male and female genitourinary systems; and learn how to
code common conditions, diseases, and procedures for both systems. We'll
also spend some time discussing maternity and childbirth and the special
medical coding challenges you'll need to consider in those cases. |
| Week Six |
| Wednesday - Lesson 11 |
| Ready to get to know Evaluation and Management codes?
Today, you'll learn the three key components of any E/M service, and
I'll provide you with 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, we'll
end up the lesson with plenty of E/M coding practice! |
| Friday - Lesson 12 |
| In our final lesson, you'll find out what's included in a surgical package and what's not. You'll also learn all about modifiers, and find out why medical coders use them to let insurance companies know about special circumstances. Finally, you'll put everything you've learned throughout the course together by coding some practice scenarios that incorporate all of the different types of codes! |
To purchase this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
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