COC – Certifed Outpatient Coder

Outpatient hospital coder jobs are trending faster than ever before in India. As physicians move away from private practice and join hospital groups career oppurtunities in Outpatient facilities such as Ambulatory Surgical Centers or hospital outpatient billing and coding departments are opening for coders. The COC exam validates your specialized payment knowledge needed for these jobs in addition to your CPT, HCPCS Level II and ICD-10-CM coding skills.

Abilities of a certified outpatient coder in regard to outpatient facilities/hospital services include:

• Proficiency is assigning accurate medical codes for diagnoses, procedures services performed in the outpatient setting
• Proficiency across a wide range of services, which include evaluation and management, anesthesia, surgical services, radiology, pathology and medicine
• Knowledge of coding rules and regulations along with keeping current on issues regarding medical coding,compliance and reimbursement under outpatient grouping systems. A trained coding professional can better handle issues such as medical necessity, claim denials, bundling issues and charge captures.
• Ability to integrate coding and reimbursement rule changes in a timely manner to include updating the Charge Desciption Master (CDM), fee updates and Field Locators (FL) on the UB04
• A working knowledge of AHA coding guidelines in the assignment of ICD-10-CM codes.
• Correctly completing a CMS 1500 for ASC and UB04 for outpatient services including the appropriate application of modifiers
• Knowledge of anatomy, physiology and medical terminology commensurate with ability to correctly provide services and diagnoses