Download your Free copy of my "Medical Coding From Home Ebook" at the top right corner of this page

2018 CPC Practice Exam Answer Key 150 Questions With Full Rationale (HCPCS, ICD-9-CM, ICD-10, CPT Codes) Click here for more sample CPC practice exam questions with Full Rationale Answers

Click here for more sample CPC practice exam questions and answers with full rationale

CPC Exam Question Breakdown – Medical Coding Certification

Posted on June 29, 2013 by CPC Exam Medical Coding Updates

Question Breakdown – This is a rough breakdown of what’s covered on the exam. They do have on the website the topics that are covered, but they don’t really let you know how many questions per. This is coming from going back to 2004, was the last time they published this on their website. I’ve been told that it’s pretty much the same today, students who have recently taken the exam said, “Yeah. That’s pretty much how it is.”

If you picture your CPT Manual because that’s really the star, that’s really where you mostly have to be proficient at, is understanding CPT procedure coding. The Surgery section starts with the 10000 series of codes to the 60,000. There are approximately 10 questions on each of those. As we go through it, you’ll see that the 10,000 is the Integumentary System; 20,000 is Musculoskeletal; 30,000 is Respiratory/Cardio, etc.

What I am doing in this review class is really saying, “Okay, if I have to write a board exam with 10 questions from the Integumentary System, and it’s based on guidelines, what kind of questions am I going to write?” And that’s what I teach. I teach the highlights where there are guideline issues that you should know. Straight up coding looking up something in the index confirming it in the main part of the book, if it’s that clear, that will not be in the board exam. They are testing you in coding guidelines. Keep that in mind.

After the Surgery, we’ve got 10 questions on Radiology approximately, 10 on Path and Lab, 10 on Medicine. Okay? That’s the CPT book.

Then, 10 on E/M, approximately 8 on Anesthesia, 8 on Medical Terminology, 10 on Anatomy. So, right there, 18 questions (maybe about 20) are on understanding medical terminology and anatomy.

Those are the ones you normally can pick up some speed. Hopefully, you can get those done quickly. If you have not had a medical terminology course, and you don’t feel strong in it, then I highly recommend if you have time to at least get some flash cards and really drill yourself. There are some good sites out there, Studystack.com is one, where other students taking other medical terminology courses have made flash cards for themselves. So, whatever you’re studying, pop in Integumentary and test yourself, see how you do. Okay?

10 questions on ICD-9, but like I said before, you could have questions on the surgery codes or the radiology codes that throw in diagnostic codes. Don’t be afraid of this. Sometimes, you can use them to your advantage. It could be like a tie breaker if you’re struggling with the CPT portion. I personally don’t think that ICD code should be, if you’re testing an examinee on surgery questions, that I think it should just be having CPT surgery codes in it.

5 questions on HCPCS, like I said, don’t blink; very, very short portion of this. Practice Management is like this catch all kind of phrase, what’s on that? I did bring the CPC study guide from the AAPC that we’ll go over. I’ll show you some sections. In there is a chapter in the beginning that is where they’re pulling information from. I have a slide with some details on it that I actually just put together this morning.