Evaluation and Management (E&M) Services 2021: AAPC CPC

Understand the CPC exam structure: 150 multiple-choice questions across 17 knowledge areas, including CBT coding, X codes, and ICD-10, with passing strategies and breaks.

Learn how evaluation and management coding differs for office, hospital, and consultation visits, and apply a three-year decision tree to determine new or established patients.

Identify how evaluation and management decision making uses case history, examination findings, and medical decision making; assess uniform codes, number of decisions, data collected, and risk management for coding.

Explore history of present illness and past, family, and social history in E&M assessment, detailing eight HPI elements—quality, severity, timing, duration, context, modifying factors, and associated signs and symptoms.

Identify chest pain etiologies by taking history and risk factors, rule out acute MI, and differentiate GERD, esophageal motility disorders, peptic ulcers, gallstones, and other cardiac or vascular causes.

Assess palpitation as presenting feature, evaluate heart rate and irregular rhythm, and use echocardiography, EKG, and Holter monitoring to identify hypertrophic cardiomyopathy; manage with lifestyle changes and beta blockers.

Navigate the review of systems across body areas and relate chief complaints to detailed history, then assess levels of E&M services using history, exam, medical decision making.

Explore how place of service, type of service, and patient status influence E&M coding. Learn the role of modifiers, history levels, and medical decision making in determining the codes.

Explain how the two by three and three by three rules guide E&M coding, selecting the all-matching code or the least or middle code based on component alignment.