Alicia: Q: What is the difference in what the AAPC offers with PractiCode and what CCO
offers?
Asked Bobbie.
A: Well, it is quite a bit different.
As you know, we’ve using PractiCode and offering that to our students for some time,
and the AAPC is now offering it as well; but the way they’re doing it and the way we’re
doing it is a little bit different.
So, let’s go in and look at this – Laureen was good enough to make this little graph,
little spreadsheet.
So, let’s start here, we have the AAPC PractiCode Module for Specialty.
They’re offering three different ways to use PractiCode.
The first one is the price difference for the module per specialty, and they have a
CPC-A practicum, and they have a practicum with CEUs.
The difference in those is different prices.
So, if you’re just wanting to practice a specialty, say you want to practice oncology,
then it’s $245; $195 if you’re an AAPC member.
It doesn’t matter if you’re existing PractiCode user.
You get 100 cases or 100 exercises in that specialty and only in that specialty.
So, maybe you’re doing orthopedics or oncology, like I said, you get 15 CEUs and the cost
per case that you do is $1.95.
Let’s see, let’s scroll down here.
There’s no assessment, it’s not in ICD-10.
Let’s see, you fill out a form via application and you don’t get any support (so, you do
it on your own), and they don’t discuss it in their forums.
For the practicum, for the AAPC, for the CPC-A, and what they’re doing for this is – do
you want to get the “A” removed?
Is what they’re offering at $299; member price it’s still a $299.
Existing PractiCode users $199, exercises you get 600.
So, you have to do all 600 to get your “A” removed, and then you don’t get CEUs, it’s
about 15 cents a CEU.
At 15 cents a case – I’m sorry, I told you wrong.
Let’s see, there’s assessment of three.
None of them, the AAPC are going to offer an ICD-10.
Again, you fill out a form, there’s no extra support, and they’re not going to talk about
it in their forums.
It’s about the same thing if you’re going to do that where you want to get the CEUs
for the cases that you’re doing, that’s going to be $499, member price is the same.
You get 600 cases only.
The CEUs, they’re going to give you 15 CEUs, it ends up being about 83 cents case.
And, again, there are four assessments, same thing – support and stuff.
So, we’re a little bit different in what we offer, it’s $299, and it’s a flat rate;
whether you’re a member with us or not, it will always be $299.
It doesn’t matter if you’re an existing PractiCode member.
We have 2500 cases that you’ll have access to.
In every specialty that PractiCode offers there is no CEUs offered.
It breaks down to 12 cents a case.
These are some of the specialties that you’ll get, and it would be probably for each specialty,
it’s not 600, but it’s a lot for each specialty.
I know there’s at least 150, I think.
So, cardiology, emergency department, general surgery, orthopedics, professional fee, family
practice/internal, medicine, inpatient, radiology, psychiatry, genitourinary, OB/GYN – I’m
trying to see if I can scroll this smoothly, I guess not.
Now, notice that when you do inpatient, you’re going to get lots of cases in inpatient across
the range.
Assessments, it’s unlimited.
You get a lot of assessments and we offer all of their ICD-10s.
They have a lot of categories in ICD-10 and you have full access to those.
You fill out a form via application just like they do, and we have a weekly support training
call that you can come on Thursday nights 7 Central.
Anyway, it’s on Thursday nights, and we give you a specific private forum access to
discuss that with the community and ask questions and get help when you stumble across something
that doesn’t feel right or you can’t quite figure it out yourself.
Alicia: That is correct, it is a course.
So, that is different.
We call it a practicum as well like they’re doing over here.
I might mention, it’s great, the AAPC is offering a way for you to have the “A”
taken off by doing this 600 cases, but just taking our coding courses that an 80-hour
coding course knocks a year off.
Here lately the tides are turning, they’re not caring if you’re a new coder or not.
You have to be able to show your skill, and by doing a practicum like this and being able
to print out how well you’re doing in any specialties you walk in with that; and I personally,
if I was hiring somebody they can show me skill, I could care less how many years they’ve
got behind them.
Boyd: My understanding is that the idea is to code by specialty until you get really
good at it, you really can’t do that with the AAPC version.
Alicia: That is true.
So, it’s wonderful that they’re doing that and it’s great that they’re giving
that extra practice and everything.
I just think we go above and beyond because we give you access to everything PractiCode
offers with all of the specialties and no extra price, and we give you support.
So, you can come to us on the forum or in those Thursday night calls and discuss the
cases individually.
So, PractiCode has some great cases on specialties.