A little this and that

With the holidays and all, I’m too distracted to have many original thoughts.  Here’s a mish mash of things to ponder.

Human Googles (aka hoogles)

I am constantly getting messages from LinkedIn contacts which are not original content, but instead links to other blogs or ads masquerading as whitepapers.  I have started referring to these people as human googles.  We can call them "hoogles" for short I suppose.  It’s easy to be a hoogle.  Just troll the Internet, find a blog you think might vaguely interest a segment of your LinkedIn contact list, and send them a link which they will never use under the guise that it is useful and informative information.  

Instead of impersonating an Internet spider and filling my inbox with hooglegrams, why not mix it up and surprise me with an original thought, opinion, or viewpoint.  It’s not easy to think of something original, and sometimes it turns out badly.  But when it works, the gift is appreciated.  And you’ll find the process of working through an original blog post is very stimulating and can help you work through issues you’re having at work. 

Most of my blog posts are of original content, not because I think I’m smarter than anyone else, but because I have a question or issue I’m interested in and which I think medical practices might be interested in as well. 

1%

When I see 1%, I now think of the Wall Street protesters.  Wow, the power of marketing.  My personal 1% isn’t so good.  I was 1% short of passing my AAPC CPC exam.  Arrgghh.  After working through my “what if” period, I scheduled to retake it in late January.  I can’t really think of any profound life lesson to blog about, but instead I’m just happy to be so close to passing, and mad at myself not studying harder. 

Hoolgegram Alert

Warning:  I’m going to refer you to a couple awesome blog posts from this past week.  You’re forewarned.

I found a couple very interesting blog posts this week on HISTalk.com.   The first one is  here: John Gomez.    John Gomez, formerly of Allscripts and Eclipsys writes an interesting piece on the health of the EMR sector.  Though I didn’t’ work with him, my time at Eclipsys overlapped with John’s, and he had loads of respect within the company, so I think what he says in this post is most interesting.

The second post may be found here: Bobbie Byrne  Bobbie Byrne,VP/CIO at Edward Hospital, Naperville, Illinois, writes about her hospital’s selection of Epic for acute and ambulatory settings..   She is also a former Eclipsys employee.

Straight ahead, 

Bob

Conditional thumbs up for the AAPC CPC

Last Saturday I sat through the 5 hour and 40 minute AAPC CPC certification exam.  Yep, “ugh” would be the appropriate reply.  But I actually enjoyed it in some perverse way, probably because I did it for me, not because I had to.  I didn't need to go through this ordeal; I'm not a biller or coder.  However, I felt I needed to really dig deeper into coding in order to feel more confident when working with the business side of medical practices.  I can compare the experience to running in Iowa winters when it’s sub-zero and ice forms on your nose.  It’s really miserable at the time, but the payoff is running a Sunbelt marathon in March. 

The Certified Professional Coder (CPC) credential is bestowed by the American Academy of Professional Coders(www.aapc.com) to those individuals who, through an exam, demonstrate proficiency with the CPT, ICD, and HCPCS coding systems. 

To prepare for the exam, I purchased the AAPC "Official CPC Certification Study Guide", three of their online prep exams, and attended the local AAPC chapter exam review class.  Overall, I think these were good preparation tools and would recommend them for anyone interested in preparing for the CPC exam.  One note of caution, however.  I was disappointed to find a surprising number of grammatical and editing errors in the study guide.  I was able to catch these issues but those who are new to medical coding may be confused by them. The Study Guide’s review questions and the online review exams were spot on with regards to the real test, as well they should be since they were prepared by the same group that produced the certification exam.  So props to AAPC on that.

I selected the CPC over a competing coder certification, the CCS administered by the AHIMA (www.ahima.org), because I was not looking for a career certification.  I wanted a short, focused learning path.  And for that purpose, I can recommend the CPC.  For career coders or billers, you’ll need to determine for yourself which certification makes sense.  And there are lots of opinions out there on the topic.  For doctors and office managers, I do think that if you have a biller who is light on experience, or an office staffer who will transition to billing/coding, the CPC Study Guide and online practice exams would be excellent training tools.

I don't have my exam results back yet; it takes 7-10 days to get the results.  But I'm pretty confident I didn’t pass, which is ok.  Examinees are allowed two exam sessions for each paid registration.  And at my local chapter AAPC review class there were many people who had failed their first exam and were taking it a second time.  The way the exam is structured, the speed at which one answers questions is very important.  Given enough time, most of the questions can be answered by referring to the CPT, ICD and HCPCS coding books.  But with the time limit in place, it’s important to really know anatomy and guidelines so as not to waste time.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s a balmy 49 degrees here in Iowa and I need to take advantage of this heat wave and get in a run.  And next week I’ll probably be hitting the books again.