Passed CCS with no training
Hey guys I am new to coding I knew nothing about it 4 weeks ago it took me a week before I could even buy the books I needed so I had 3 weeks to study and 2 days ago I passed the ccs exam on my first attempt. I am probably crazy but I had no training I bought no courses I had to learn everything and I did it using AI. I used chat gpt and claude to help me study. they are not perfect and mess up a lot but when you are just starting off learning they can be accurate once you get good at coding you start catching all of their mistakes and have to correct them lol I know its a mess but I really didn't know what I was taking on I just did it.I took the outline off of ahima website that tells you all thats on the test and I told both claude and chat gpt to teach me step by step all the things on the outline. Claude made me this really cool interactive thing that had all the domains and all the topics under each domain. be specific and let them know what you need I personally learn best when Im applying stuff in real time so I asked them not only to teach me quiz me over each domain and for every individual topic give me a code to look up or some type of task that allows me to apply that guideline rule whatever. Do full practice scenarios they are the best way to learn sequencing etc after you make the same mistake so many times you stop making it. The best thing to do is to ask them to give you scenarios and guide you step by step on what to do. do as many of them as you need to feel confident. eventually you wont need the step by step anymore because you'll remember what to do. I have a very short attention span when it comes to learning so when I was trying to build a foundation and learn the guidelines/ rules and things on the ahima outline I asked them to give me the rule, an example of the rule, and a code to look up or a task that lets me apply that rule in real time. I didn't have any practice books test books or anything I was piecing little free test together off google so im not much help in materials outside the AI tools I used. I agree with some others who have said that there was a lot of stuff on the test that wasn't even covered on the outline so I never even learned anything about a few of the questions. I was like I never even heard of this. But this is the most important part do not give up on the test. its long af and I was mentally exhausted, sleepy, dry, the water I was sipping was doing nothing. But as my spirit continued to break with each question I didn't know or didn't feel confident on I would just tell myself I can't fail this test. I would sit back up and lock back in and I had to do this at least 10 times over the course of the 4 hrs. I borrowed the $350 from my mom to even take it so me failing was not an option because I didn't have another $350 to borrow. Lastly my test strategy. outside from doubting myself every other question there was a patch of questions I felt good in my responses back to back so that built back up some confidence for me and I started thinking maybe I can pass this. Do everything that you know right off hand first. you can flag questions so if its something thats going to require you to look up something thats more than 2 codes or you really have to search for or you just flat out don't know mark the first answer and flag it so you can come back to it and actually spend time on those once you get all your easy ones out the way. I went through the first 80 or so with only like 40 answered confidently so I had like 40 flagged that I didn't know or I needed to spend time on before I even went back for those I moved on to the scenarios section. I kept being told that people run out of time on the scenarios section and I just didn't want to do that so I took a good chunk of time on the scenarios I would say I spent the first hour answering questions and skipping the ones I didn't know in the multiple choice around 2 hrs on the scenarios section and once I completed those I spent the last hour trying to figure out ones I was stuck on or required a lot of research back in the multiple choice section. Even though I passed I regret not at least buying something to give me practice test the free ones were always very short they'd give me like 5 questions and id have to pay for the rest which I didn't do. a good chunk of the test is knowing the rules and regulations I remember one of the questions asked about if there's a data breach how many people have to be affected in order for it to have to be reported to the news and also how many days do they have to notify the people in the data breach. there were questions like how many days do you have to provide a patient with their discharge summary, when is an operative report due. so just make sure you brush up on stuff like that luckily for me I had just covered those things like a day or two before the test so it was fresh in my mind. this was a very interesting few weeks but im glad I did it now the next task is finding a job