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Q#10: I’m taking my CPC exam in April, do you know if I can use my CPT…?
A: No, no, no.
Alicia: No.
Laureen: Do not use old manuals. Can you? Yes. Should you? No.
Alicia: No.
Laureen: You’re paying $399, why do you want to risk having to go take it again. And many, many people are missing the exam by two points, so if you’re using old manuals the chances of that being new are very great. You’re better off investing in a new manual than having to pay to take the exam again.
Q#11: Are there any remote jobs for apprentice coders?
CPC Exam – Job for Medical Coders – Video
A: There are. They’re very hard to find. That’s why we’re excited about Practicode and with Practicode they don’t care if you have the “A” after your credential. What they care about is your proficiency. When you log into Practicode and you start coding those practice cases your scores is going to be horrible at first. Overtime, with practice, especially when you stay in one area of focus like radiology, or family practice, or cardiology, you will become proficient at that particular specialty; and then you go and you apply for a job with Aviacode and say, “Hey, by the way I’m a Practicode user and this is my proficiency score.” They will pay more attention to that than the fact that you don’t have experience, and that you’re an apprentice. Because really, that’s what matters is how well you can code, not the fact that you might have 10 years experience because maybe you’re just a horrible coder and you’ve been doing it for 10 years badly [laughs]. That’s what we’re currently recommending and that kind of answers question #21 too.
Q#12: How can you get experience?
A: It’s just like any field that you get into. You got to get that first job, and it’s always the hardest because most employers want people with experience, you would too if you were the employer. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t jobs out there that don’t take a chance on a new person. And that e-book that we have that talk about getting that first job, we highly recommend that, it’s free. We had our writer go out and interview people that were looking for coders in different areas: billing companies, doctor’s offices, hospitals; and basically we went down the chain of what is it about a cover letter that will get your attention to read someone’s resume. What was it about the resume that would get you to call them in for an interview? What is it about an interview that would have you hire them even if they didn’t have experience? There are lots of nuggets in there.
My biggest take-away from it is make sure your cover letter matches the job. Don’t have it be a canned cover letter. If you say, “I’m really excited about the possibility with the position with ABC Clinic. I’ve heard great things about you, my father went there,” it’s just something that you could tie it into, you actually really are tying this cover letter in with the specific job offer – not offer, what I’m trying to say, job want ad.