How Practice Increases Your Chances of Passing the Coding Exam

by  Find-A-Code™
Nov 13th, 2023

You have undoubtedly heard the phrase, 'practice makes perfect'. What if we applied the principle to preparing to take a medical coding exam? Would practice increase your chances of passing? While there are no guarantees, your chances of success will likely be higher if you take some practice exams prior to sitting for the real thing.

It turns out that the 'practice makes perfect' principle doesn't always hold true. In essence, practice does not make perfect when a person continues to do the same things over and over again. Practice only helps a person improve when the things being done are designed to push them further. That is why so many medical coding practice exams rely on real world scenarios that expose future coders to all sorts of circumstances they would never experience in a classroom setting.

If you are preparing to sit for a coding exam, take advantage of practice tests. The right kind of practice, in sufficient volume, could significantly increase your chances of passing on the first try. Below is a brief explanation of how practice actually helps.

1. It Helps You Pay Attention to Details

Details are a medical coder's Achilles heel. For example, it is not unusual for a coder to have to look at 5-10 different ICD-10 codes covering a particular medical condition. The only way to apply the correct code is to understand the details in the clinician's notes. With practice, coders learn to pay better attention to those details.

2. It Helps You Understand Clinician Rationale

When a coder is looking at multiple codes for a single procedure or diagnosis, understanding the clinician's rationale is often key to determining which code to apply. Unfortunately, clinician rationale is not something coders know by instinct. It is actually something they need to learn.

Practice tests based on real world scenarios give potential coders an opportunity to learn how to understand clinician rationale better. This is definitely one aspect of medical coding that cannot be learned from a book. It can only be learned by doing.

3. It Familiarizes You With Looking up Codes

Coders spend much of their time looking up codes. Given that there are tens of thousands of them, it is unreasonable for coders to remember even those codes they use most often. Therefore, coders need to be familiar with their resources. Taking practice exams gives them the opportunity to practice code lookup frequently enough to familiarize themselves with those resources.

Fortunately, technology is changing things in this respect. Medical coders can now use online resources for much of their work. Printed code sets still have a place at the table, but looking codes up online is faster, more efficient, and considerably easier. Yet a coder still needs to know how to find their way around online resources. Practice makes that possible.

4. Practice Makes Coding Second Nature

Efficiency and productivity in any career are heavily dependent on being able to do things without having to stop and think about them. A carpenter does certain things because they are second nature to him. Likewise for delivery drivers, dental technicians, website developers, etc.

Taking practice exams helps make certain tasks second nature to the coder. And that takes the pressure off sitting for an exam. In theory, more practice makes one more comfortable when it comes time for the real thing.

Practice doesn't always make perfect in every situation. There are no guarantees of anything. But taking practice exams is likely to improve your chances of passing when the time comes. So as you prepare, make the effort to practice.