THE CLEAN CLAIM
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AAPC CPC® · Certified Professional Coder

Pass the CPC on the
first claim you file.

A premium study manual and a 100-question timed exam, built to the 2026 code sets and red-teamed answer by answer. We don't teach you to memorize codes — we train the hand that finds them. Because the CPC is open-book, and the coder who navigates fastest wins.

First pass. Every time.

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100
Verified questions
24
Manual chapters
18
Exam domains
75%
Trained above the line

Why The Clean Claim

The method, not the memory.

The real exam hands you the code books. The skill it tests is whether you can move through them under a clock. Everything here is built for that — the rule, the citation, the worked logic, and the exact look-up path to the answer.

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Navigator Notes

Every rationale ends with the precise book path — Index main term, then Tabular or section verification, then the guideline that governs. The feature no one else builds, written for an open-book exam.

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Shuffled every attempt

Question order and all four answer choices re-shuffle on every run. Repeat sittings test what you know, never where the answer sat last time.

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The After-Action Report

Score by domain, find your two weakest, and get sent back to the exact manual chapters to re-drill. Then retake on a fresh shuffle. The loop that closes the gap.

Look Inside

Every answer, fully worked.

Real questions in the style of the exam — each with the answer, the reasoning, why it matters, and the Navigator path to find it in the book. This is the standard, on every one of the hundred.

Question 27 — Worked in fullEvaluation & Management
For office or other outpatient E/M services (codes 99202-99215), the level of service may be selected based on either the total time on the date of the encounter or which other element?
A)The number of body systems examined only
B)The patient's age
C)The level of medical decision making (MDM)  ✓
D)The number of prescriptions written only
Why it's correct: Since the 2021 revisions, office/outpatient E/M level selection is based on either the level of medical decision making (problems addressed, data reviewed, and risk) or total time on the date of the encounter. History and exam are still performed and documented as medically appropriate but no longer drive the level. This framework is heavily tested.
Navigator — how to find it in the book: CPT: Evaluation and Management Guidelines, the office/outpatient subsection and the MDM table (Number/Complexity of Problems, Amount/Complexity of Data, Risk) used to assign 99202-99215.
Question 37 — Worked in fullRadiology
A radiologic procedure description includes a 'professional component' and a 'technical component.' When a radiologist interprets a film owned and operated by a hospital, the radiologist typically reports the service with which modifier?
A)Modifier 26 for the professional component  ✓
B)Modifier TC for the technical component
C)Modifier 50 for bilateral
D)Modifier 76 for a repeat procedure
Why it's correct: Modifier 26 identifies the professional component (the physician's interpretation and report) when the technical component (equipment, supplies, technologist) is provided and billed by the facility. Modifier TC reports the technical component alone. When one entity performs both, a global service is reported with no split modifier.
Navigator — how to find it in the book: CPT: Appendix A (Modifiers) for modifier 26 and modifier TC (HCPCS); the Radiology Guidelines explain the professional/technical split and 'separate procedure' conventions.
Question 91 — Worked in fullCase Coding
A 58-year-old established patient presents to dermatology for a 1.2 cm pigmented lesion on the left forearm that has changed in appearance. The physician performs an excision; the lesion plus a 0.3 cm margin on each side is removed, and the wound is closed with a simple single-layer suture. Pathology later returns the lesion as malignant melanoma. How should the coder approach final code assignment?
A)Code from the benign-lesion excision range because the lesion looked benign at the time of surgery
B)Bundle the closure and code only a biopsy
C)Code the excision from the malignant-lesion excision range using the excised diameter (lesion + margins = 1.8 cm) for the forearm; the simple closure is included in the excision and is not reported separately; and assign the malignant melanoma ICD-10-CM code once pathology confirms it  ✓
D)Wait and code nothing because the diagnosis was uncertain at the time of service
Why it's correct: Lesion excision is coded by behavior (use the malignant range once pathology confirms melanoma), and the excised diameter is the lesion plus the narrowest margins (1.2 + 0.3 + 0.3 = 1.8 cm). A simple closure is included in the excision code and is not reported separately; only intermediate or complex repairs would be reported in addition. The diagnosis follows the confirmed pathology.
Navigator — how to find it in the book: CPT: Integumentary 'Excision—Malignant Lesions' (11600 series) + 'Repair (Closure)' simple-repair rules; ICD-10-CM Index: [Melanoma] → confirm site (skin of forearm) in the Tabular and the Table of Neoplasms (Malignant Primary).
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The two pieces

A manual to learn it.
An exam to prove it.

The five-part manual teaches the method across twenty-four chapters, weight-matched to how the exam actually distributes its questions. The timed reader puts you in the chair: four hours, a hundred questions, the same open-book pressure — then shows you exactly where to go next.

Inside the ManualInside the Exam

Built on a standard

Every figure is current to the 2026 code sets — ICD-10-CM, CPT®, and HCPCS Level II. Every answer was independently red-teamed before it shipped. No governing-body text is reproduced; every reference is paraphrased and cited by section. That is the house rule, and it is not negotiable.

See the standard for yourself.

The sample is free and open — no email wall. Sit with real questions, read the Navigator notes, and feel the difference. If it's the help you've been looking for, the whole program is waiting.

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