Coding for Medical Necessity in the Physician's Office

Put your coding skills to work by learning how to code for medical necessity from medical records. This work text will provide you with the foundation you need to get your coding skills to the next level. You will learn how abstract the right information from medical records, how match diagnoses with the correct procedures, and when and how to use CPT modifiers. With this foundation, you will be well on your way to becoming an expert coder.

This textbook will contain many opportunities to abstract from medical documents. The format of the book will be more of a Worktext, with an introduction. This book will describe medical scenarios for abstracting diagnoses and procedures and matching diagnoses with the correct procedures. Students can learn how to code, but what they don't really learn is to extract the right information from medical records in order to code properly. Oftentimes students have a hard time understanding that both ICD-9 and CPT codes are needed for the claim. This book will address these problems. This book will include more advanced coding concepts and more on abstracting diagnoses and procedures than what is found in current texts. This text will cover when and how to use CPT modifiers and will also include some hints the authors taught students to help make coding more understandable. Other learning materials throw students into coding without any foundation for abstraction of medical information.

Deborah Kelly-Farwell BS, CCS-P, CPC Coding and Charge Entry Manager Fallon Clinic Faculty at The Salter School, Worcester, MA Teaches Coding, Medical Terminology, A&P, Medical Insurance, Medical Office, Computers

Cecile Favreau, MBA, CPC is currently a Professional Relations Specialist with UMass Memorial Medical Group and an instructor at the Salter School in Worcester, MA.