Highlighting the CPT Book

So one thing that I always tell my students to do, is to take the time to highlight the CPT book. Sounds easy as 123. But is it? Let’s talk about it.

Say what you will, but the CPT is a big book. There is just a lot of info in there. Bear in mind, it just takes time to learn and figure out how to find everything.

But one thing you can do to help you learn CPT is to highlight the book. Now there are a couple of different ways to do this and I always tell my students to do what works for them. The way that I teach to highlight is just the way I do it–it is not the only way.

So here are the steps:

• Highlight the first few words of the main CPT code.

• Then  group the codes together.

• The last step is to circle any directions that are in parenthesis

This might be tough to visualize, but you can watch the video below for a quick tutorial:

Highlighting the CPT book has many benefits including:

• You’ll learn how the CPT book is set up. You’ll start to see a pattern in the codes and/or categories of the codes.

• You’ll be able to code quicker when you’re taking the CPC exam. Remember that you just have 4 hours to answer 100 questions.

The best part is- you can use plain old highlighters in your CPT book. You don’t need anything fancy 🙂

One last thing–I go LIVE on Tiktok every Monday from 8:00-8:30 pm EST and highlight the CPT book. Feel free to join! If you miss it, I post the full recording on my Youtube channel.

Other things you may be interested in:

Medical Coding Course

Book Tabs for the Coding Books

Medical Terminology Guide

Coding Confidence: Exam Strategy Workshop