CPC Exam Prep: How to Study, What to Drill, and Practice Cases (2026)

Key takeaway: The CPC is an open-book speed test of CPT, ICD-10-CM, and HCPCS, as AAPC currently publishes the blueprint. Tab the books, drill timed cases, and plan for the CPC-A apprentice designation after you pass. This page is not AAPC courseware and is not a dump of exam items.

This site is not affiliated with AAPC. Exam format, eligibility, allowed manuals, and fees change. Confirm them on AAPC’s site. We do not quote fees or pass rates.

What to confirm on AAPC’s site before you study

1. Current question count, time limit, and delivery (in-person or live remote proctor).
2. Which manual editions are allowed in the room.
3. Membership requirement to sit and to hold the credential.
4. Current routes to remove CPC-A.

If a program cannot answer those four in writing, pick a different program.

A study sequence that matches the exam

1. Terminology and anatomy until the words are boring. You cannot look up what a word means fast enough if you do not already know it.
2. Tab and mark the three manuals the way you will use them under a timer. Section tabs, guideline flags, and common tables. Pretty tabs that you do not use are decoration.
3. ICD-10-CM guidelines as a workbook, not a novel. Chapter-specific rules (laterality, combination codes, sequelae) are where people lose easy points.
4. CPT by section with the guidelines at the front of each section. E/M is not optional. Anesthesia, radiology, path, and medicine still appear.
5. HCPCS Level II for supplies, drugs, and services CPT does not cover, plus modifiers you will actually use.
6. Timed mixed sets. Untimed accuracy is homework. The exam is a clock.

A working parent with two evenings a week should protect one of those evenings for timed sets. Reading chapters on the couch does not move the score.

Original practice cases

These are teaching scenarios, not live exam items. Use current manuals. Answers follow each case. If your manual year differs from the year you test, the principle still holds; the code number may not.

Case 1. Office visit, established patient

A 62-year-old established patient is seen in the office for follow-up of type 2 diabetes mellitus without complications and essential hypertension. The physician documents a medically appropriate history and exam and low medical decision making. No procedures.

What to look up: E/M office visit for an established patient at the low MDM level, plus two diagnosis codes.

Teaching point: Level the visit from medical decision making (or time, if time is documented as the basis), not from how long the note looks. Diabetes and hypertension each need their own ICD-10-CM code unless a combination code applies. Confirm laterality and control status in the current guidelines.

Case 2. Skin lesion, excision

The surgeon excises a 1.2 cm benign lesion from the left forearm, including margins, and closes the wound with simple sutures. Pathology confirms benign.

What to look up: CPT excision of benign lesion, arm, by excised diameter; simple repair is usually bundled. ICD-10-CM for a benign neoplasm of skin of the upper limb.

Teaching point: Excision codes are driven by location and excised diameter, including margins, not by the lesion’s visual size before surgery. Do not add a simple repair code when the CPT parentheticals say it is included.

Case 3. Fracture, closed treatment

A patient presents to the clinic after a fall. X-ray in the office confirms a closed, nondisplaced fracture of the distal radius, right. The physician performs closed treatment without manipulation and applies a splint. The patient is referred to orthopedics.

What to look up: CPT closed treatment of distal radius fracture without manipulation; imaging if billed by this physician; ICD-10-CM fracture code with laterality, encounter type, and (if required) displacement.

Teaching point: Fracture coding is picky about open vs closed, with vs without manipulation, and 7th-character encounter. An office that “just puts a splint on” can still be a procedure plus an E/M if documentation supports a separately identifiable visit. Read the modifier 25 rules before you add both.

Case 4. Screening vs diagnostic colonoscopy

A 51-year-old has a screening colonoscopy. The surgeon finds and removes a polyp by snare in the sigmoid colon. Pathology is pending.

What to look up: Whether the screening converts to a diagnostic/therapeutic procedure; CPT for colonoscopy with snare polypectomy; ICD-10-CM for screening and for the polyp.

Teaching point: A screening that becomes a polypectomy is billed as the therapeutic colonoscopy, with the screening diagnosis kept in the picture per current CMS and ICD-10-CM screening guidelines. Do not invent a “screening CPT” if the report documents a snare removal.

Case 5. Injections and HCPCS

A patient with knee osteoarthritis receives a corticosteroid injection in the left knee in the office. The physician supplies the drug.

What to look up: CPT for arthrocentesis/injection, major joint; HCPCS for the drug and units; laterality modifier if required.

Teaching point: The procedure and the drug are separate. Units follow the HCPCS descriptor, not the syringe size you guess. Laterality belongs on the procedure.

Case 6. Unspecified vs laterality

The note says “otitis media” with no laterality and no chronic/acute status.

What to look up: ICD-10-CM for otitis media. Then stop and query.

Teaching point: Unspecified codes exist, and overusing them is how audits start. A query for laterality and acute vs chronic is the coder’s job, written so it does not lead the provider to a higher-paying code.

Case 7. NCCI and unbundling

A physician documents a diagnostic arthroscopy of the knee and, in the same session, an arthroscopic meniscectomy in the same knee.

What to look up: CPT for arthroscopic meniscectomy; whether diagnostic arthroscopy is bundled; NCCI edits and any allowed modifier.

Teaching point: Diagnostic arthroscopy is typically included in the surgical arthroscopy at the same site. Billing both without an NCCI-allowed modifier is unbundling.

Case 8. Telehealth place of service

An established patient has a real-time video visit from home for medication management of hypothyroidism, low MDM.

What to look up: E/M office/outpatient code; place of service and any telehealth modifier or POS that the current year requires.

Teaching point: Telehealth rules have moved. Do not memorize a 2020 POS code from a forum post. Confirm the current CMS and payer instructions for the date of service.

What a prep program should include

1. Current-year manuals, named by edition.
2. Timed, mixed, full-length practice, not only chapter quizzes.
3. E/M taught as a full unit.
4. The CPC-A rule in writing before you enroll.
5. A written retake policy. A voucher is an attempt, not a pass.

Questions to ask admissions are also on the questions to ask checklist.

After you pass

You are a CPC-A until you finish a route AAPC currently publishes. Remote coding jobs still usually want production experience. Use the salary percentiles, not a school’s round number, when you read offers. Individual first-job stories from public forums are collected on coder voices; they are not a BLS table.