The Next Step for Advanced Medical Coding

This book focuses on physician and outpatient coding for medical visits, diagnostic testing and interpretation, surgeries, anesthesia, and all physician treatments and services. Everything previously learned in the basic Step text is brought together in this book to simulate the professional coding experience. It focuses on patient cases, some with multiple records or reports, requiring readers to differentiate between coding a particular diagnosis or procedure based on a visit to a doctor's office versus an outpatient procedure at a hospital or similar facility. Instructor resources are available; please contact your Elsevier sales representative for details. Best-selling coding author Carol Buck has a Master's degree in adult education and has been teaching in medical secretarial programs for 25 years. Actual patient cases give examples in every section of the text, cases with multiple reports provide different levels of difficulty, reflecting concrete, real-world situations that coders encounter on the job. Worktext format allows users to record all answers to the cases directly in the text. E/M Audit forms developed by the author to determine the correct E/M codes are provided, with extra forms included in Appendix A for use with other cases. From the Trenches feature highlights a different real-life medical coding practitioner in each chapter, with photographs throughout the chapter alongside practical advice & motivational quotes.