Implementation of a medical coding curriculum for surgery residents

Medical coding knowledge is important for practice. We hypothesized that general surgery residents lack confidence in medical coding (MC) and that implementation of focused didactics would increase resident confidence and knowledge.

A MC curriculum was delivered to general surgery residents covering domains of the global procedural period (GPP), evaluation and management (E/M) coding, and hospital payment and quality metrics (HPQM). A 21-question survey was developed to assess resident comfort coding knowledge. Efficacy of the MC curriculum was measured by anonymous paper pre-test and post-test surveys.

Pre-test (n = 50) findings revealed that residents were uncomfortable with MC. Following three MC lectures, the post-test (n = 24) demonstrated significant increases in resident comfort with MC (p < 0.001) and resident performance on domains of GPP (p = 0.014), E/M (p < 0.001), and HQPM (p = 0.025).

Residents feel uncomfortable with MC without formal education. This study supports a focused curriculum to prepare residents for practice.