How To Play The Coding Game

Playing the coding game is easy. For the most part, you will just do what you normally do when you code medical documents. You will use our coding game web page to do your coding. The web page has been designed to make it easy for you to apply codes to charts. An example is shown in the Figure on this page.

Guide To The Coding Web Pages

Area Number	Description
	The Code Entry Screen
1	The title of documents associated with a chart is shown here. To see a particular document, simply click on the document title
2	The document itself is shown in this area. You can scroll down to see parts of the document not shown on the page
3	Enter your codes in this part of the page. Diagnostic codes are entered in the top section of the area. Procedure codes are entered in the bottom section. In the first box of the diagnostic code and procedure code sections, you should enter the principal diagnostic code and principal procedure code.
4	When you are through entering your codes, press the Score button
5	Feedback is provided in two areas. In the bottom portion of the screen, where you entered the codes, the boxes will be colored. The codes entered that are correct will be highlighted in green. Those that are overcodes, codes that should not be applied to the chart will be highlighted in yellow. The first box will also have a colored border. The border will be green, yellow, or pink depending on whether you entered the correct principal code (green), entered a principal code that was incorrect (yellow), or left the principal box blank when you should have entered a code (pink). In area five, a tally of the number of hits (correctly coded entries) misses (codes that should have been entered but were not) and overcodes (codes that you entered but should not have been entered) is kept. Similar taliies are kept for the principal procedure and principal diagnostic codes entered. Also in this area, if you want to see the codes you missed, you can do so by pressing the show misses button. The tallies kept here are cumulative across each case that you evaluate.
6	After reviewing your feedback, you can display the next chart by pressing the Next button.

Area Number	Description
	The Voting Screen
	Play on this screen is a little different. You don't enter codes. You just vote!
1	As with the Code Entry Screen the title of documents associated with a chart is shown here. To see a particular document, simply click on the document title.
2	The document itself is shown in this area. You can scroll down to see parts of the document not shown on the page.
3a - 3b	Codes are prepopulated on the Coding Screen in the boxes pointed to by 3a. You don't need to look anything up. All you need to do is vote. You do this by clicking on the check boxes (as shown in 3b). You also need to indicate which of the codes displayed are the principal diagnostic code and which of the codes displayed are the principal procedure code. To do this, click in the box containing the code. The background of the box will turn orange indicating your choice.
4	When you are through entering your codes, press the Score button.
5	As with the Code Entry Screen, feedback is provided in two areas. The codes that were checked that are correct will be highlighted in green. Those that are overcodes, codes that were checked but that should not be applied to the chart will be highlighted in yellow. Codes that were not checked but should have been applied to the chart will be highlighted in pink. Finally, codes for which there is no consensus (some coders think the code applies to the chart and some do not) will be highlighted in blue. The border around the boxes will also be highlighted. If the border is green, it means that you correctly selected the code to be the principal. If it is yellow, it means that you selected a code to be the principal but the actual principal code is one of the other ones displayed,. If the border is pink, it means that you failed to select a code as the principal when you should have. Finally, if the border is blue, it means that there is no consensus about what the principal code for this case should be. As before, there is a key to the meaning of the colors in the area right above where the codes are displayed. In area five, a tally of the number of hits (correctly coded entries) misses (codes that should have been entered but were not) and overcodes (codes that you entered but should not have been entered) is kept. Codes for which there is no consensus (the blue codes) will not affect your score. A similar tally for the principal procedure and principal diagnostic codes is also found in this area. Again, the tallies kept here are cumulative across each case that you evaluate.
6	After reviewing your feedback, you can display the next chart by pressing the Next button.

Scoring

For each game you play, you will receive a score between 0 and 100. The score represents a measure of your accuracy. Your accuracy score depends on two things, the number of codes you entered that were correct (your hits) and the number of codes you entered that were incorrect (your overcodes). All this means is that you should be careful when you guess a code. An incorrect guess can lower your overall score.

Moving To Higher Levels

Games are played at different levels. Everyone starts at level 0. After playing a minimum of five games at a level, your average score will be evaluated against all other coders who have played at that level. If your average score is in the top 20% of coders at that level, you will advance to the next level.