Q: [BHAT] �I am having trouble managing my time to finish BHAT my codebooks. Between
my college classes and work and CCO, any suggestions� A: It�s not hard to do. You could actually
do it while watching TV, like maybe you�re decompressing after work or whatever, as the
kids go to bed. Instead of just sitting there, which I know would be preferred, but while
you�re in study mode, get your books out and just sit at the dining room, kitchen table
and do it while you�re watching TV. Or something else, listening to the news, so that you can
multitask. You just got to take the time and do it.
Now, what I recommend to students doing, say, the Blitz or one of the coding courses, don�t
try and bubble and highlight your whole book and then go and listen to lectures. Do it
just prior to the lecture you�re about to listen to. So, if you�re about to do the
digestive surgery section, bubble and highlight that section of CPT. Get it all bubbled first
then go and highlight. That�s how I do it. I do all the circles first so I have the same
writing implement in my hand, pencil, pencil, make my circles. Then I go back and take my
yellow highlighter and I highlight everything after the semicolon for that section. Then
I go back if I have access to the BHAT note, I just write the key notes that were shared,
and then I go and I listen to the lecture, now my books done.
If I pick up another point that I want to write in my book, I go ahead and do that.
Or later on, if you read an article or something that�s come out and you want make that note,
go ahead and write that in the book. That�s a better way to do it and it�s less overwhelming.
If that was just the prep work prior to the lecture; that�s how I used to when I taught
this in a 20-week course, that was part of their homework. They had to bubble and highlight
that section that I was going to lecture on. Alicia: I think that something that people
get confused with or is a misconception about the BHAT technique, this is a technique, this
isn�t something that you have to look at every page that we give you of the template
because as Laureen said, go right and bubble it. She tells you how and what you�re looking
for to bubble the sections. You could do that really quick where you just flip a page. There�s
nothing else that you have to look at to do that. Then, go back and highlight. She tells
you these are the things you need to highlight after it was the semicolon, what differentiates
this code from this code, you�re going to highlight that. Again, some people think that
they have to have that template and they got to go and do it one at a time. No.
Laureen: It�s become more complicated than it needs to. Sometimes we get to relying on
being kind of spoon-fed some stuff, but if you take a step back, the purpose of it is
to visually draw your eye to the groups of codes. The whole CPT manual with a few exceptions
has parent codes with indented codes. Sometimes it�s just one parent code that�s called
a standalone code, so you don�t bubble it, you don�t draw a circle around it. But any
parent code with any indented codes, you draw a circle around including any parenthetical
notes at the bottom of the group and that�s your bubble, that�s your grouping. They�re
all the same, parent codes with indented codes. You don�t have to see how I bubbled it because
they�re all the same, parent codes with bubble codes. So, if you just do that without
trying to look at our copy of my manual, you�ll go so much quicker.
Then, highlighting is the same. It�s everything after the semicolon. In a parent code, there�s
normally a little semicolon, it�s hard to see that�s why I started this method. Even
if there was nothing after it, I would just highlight the space. Everything indented,
what comes after the semicolon, so you would highlight everything if that was indented.
It makes that group stand out. Standalone code doesn�t have a semicolon, you don�t
need to highlight so I normally use pale yellow for all my highlighting after the semicolon
so I go through and do that. Then, I go back. Now that I�ve got my bubbles, then I would
say to myself what�s the difference between the bubbles; what�s the difference between
bubble A and bubble B? You look for the keyword and you either circle that or you use a different
highlighter color, whatever you want to do. Write the words down if you want and then
if there are any guidelines that you wanted to jot, like a biggie is fluoroscopy included.
That�s in the guidelines but they�ll give you a long range. Well, guess what, that range
is normally the bubble. So, that�s all you need to do but what this
has turned into because the bright idea to make a video of my manual, so I wasn�t giving
a copy manual because that�s a clear violation of copyright, but I would videotape it but
the AMA doesn�t like that. They don�t their print manual videotaped in that fashion
so we�re no longer doing it that way. We just want you to use the technique for what
we did for last year when AMA asked us to stop doing that, is we came up with an artist
rendering where they would say �OK, generally on the upper right hand corner of this page
would be the bubble and this is what type.� That was very, very tedious. Yes, we�re
going to try and do that again this year, but the point of this is it�s not necessary,
it really isn�t. If you just get the structure, the bubbles and the highlighting and then
you listen to lecture, you�re going to get the key note that you need. But for those
that really insist, it will come, but it�s a very, very, very laborious process to create
this artist rendering. Then you have to scroll. So, you�re asking the question time saving,
do all your bubbles first for the section, do all your highlighting next, listen to the
lecture and get your notes as you�re listening to
the lecture.