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Courses >
Health Care, Nutrition, & Fitness > 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.
This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Jennifer Della'Zanna.
 Jennifer Della'Zanna graduated from Albright College in Reading, PA with a Bachelor of Arts degree. With 15 years' experience in the health care industry, she has worked as a medical transcriptionist, receptionist, medical assistant, practice administrator, biller, and coding specialist. She has written and edited courses and study guides on medical coding, transcription, and using technology in health care. She regularly writes feature articles about health issues for online and print publications. Jennifer is a member of the American Academy of Professional Coders and the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity.
To purchase this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
Requirements:
Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader).
You'll need access to both of the main medical coding books we'll use in this course:
2007, 2008 or 2009 CPT manual, Professional Edition
2007, 2008 or 2009 ICD-9-CM, Physician Edition
The spiral-bound editions are recommended for both books. The course works equally well for all three years of the books.
These books can also be purchased from the following locations: www.Half.com, www.Ebay.com, www.Alibris.com, www.abebooks.com, www.chegg.com (you can rent or buy here).
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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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!
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To purchase this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
Student Reviews:
"I found this course to be very interesting and informative. I have been working as a unit secretary on the surgical unit of a local community hospital for 5 years and being able to approach the kind of data I am used to dealing with in a completely different way was very interesting to me."
"If you are interested in learning about medical billing and coding, you will not find a better place to begin, nor a better person from whom to learn. Thanks to Jennifer I’ve found a new career. Her knowledge, gentle coaching and encouragement were key to building my confidence and my understanding of a complicated subject. Along with my highest recommendation and appreciation, I give Jennifer five stars!!"
"I have been a certified coder CPC with the AAPC for three years now. I have been a medical biller for 20+ years now; but, since I do not code per se, I felt a beginner’s course would help me keep up on coding. Thanks, the class did do this for me."
"I wanted to thank you for the way you conducted this coding class. You made it fun and intriguing. There were some obstacles, but they were challenging to jump."
"Thank you for your expertise and professional organization of such a course. I have found a "remote" job from an insurance company. A RN adjudicator is mentoring me. I am so excited."
"Thank you so much, I have spent a lot of money on other courses and did not learn as much as I did in this class."
"Your teaching method is EXCELLENT and very easy to understand! I have two friends in our church that are taking this course from other institutions and they have been with their course close to 18 months and one has graduated and last week after the 2nd lesson I was able to help her understand the Superbill and where to place the different codes correctly. I am enjoying this class very much and looking forward to what more you have to teach me. THANK YOU!"
To purchase this course, click the Enroll Now button below:
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