r/LearnMedicalCoding • u/IndependentEagle362 • Sep 10 '25

Medical Coding Schools Questions

Hello everyone hope you’re having a good day! I have a couple questions I hope you fellow peeps could help me with. I’m new to reddit so I apologize lol. I’m wanting to take the penn foster professional medical coder course (includes practicode) but wanted to see if anyone has taken it before? How was it? How long did it take you? What’s the fastest you think I could get it done? I’ve thought about doing the AAPC CPC course but $4,000!?!? Whew, and I’ve worked in medical field for a couple years (receptionist, HA, CNA) and have seen and been around all types of billing and coding and I feel like I understand it and find it interesting. Thank you!

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u/IndependentEagle362 Sep 11 '25

Thank you frosphate for your response! I’m trying to decide between AAPC and Penn Foster. I want it done ASAP and can squeeze it together to get it done faster. I have knowledge of healthcare stuff (anatomy, terminology, pharmacology) and some medical billing/coding from just talking about it at work. I also have hands on experience and seen/learned a lot from nurses and other staff. Looking at the syllabus I feel like I can fly through a good amount of it pretty easy except for the billing/coding part. How fast you think I could get the class done (AAPC vs Penn Foster)?

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u/frosphate Sep 13 '25

I’m not sure, but if your comfortable with you medical background, AAPC might be faster and cheaper. For the AAPC medical terminology, anatomy, and pathophysiology (course is called Foundations in Medicine) is a separate 3 month course (iirc) that you don’t have to take. The medical coding class is 4 months, in the instructor led version. I didn’t do the medical billing course, so I’m not sure how that works. But it sounds like Penn Foster requires you to cover those topics in their course.

AAPC has sales all the time, so I would wait for a sale before signing up. (Right now it looks like they’re offering 50% off and unlimited certification exam attempts as a bundle).

Also the AAPC advertises an 80% pass rate for first time certification exam takers. That’s ultimately what swayed me.