AAPC CPMA Career Opportunities

Passing the AAPC Certified Professional Medical Auditor (CPMA) exam takes 70% of 100 questions answered inside 240 minutes, and the fee is $425 for one attempt or $499 for two exam attempts. It tests whether you can audit a medical record: check the documentation, apply the coding rules, follow the compliance requirements, sample records sensibly and report what you find.

The question counts below come from the seven syllabus areas, and they are not even. One area carries 36 of the 100 questions and another carries 2, so your study hours should not be even either. To see where you stand before you plan anything, start the CPMA practice test and use the result as your baseline.

What does the CPMA credential show, and who is it for?

A coder decides which code a record supports. An auditor decides whether that decision was right, whether the record supported it, and whether the same mistake is happening elsewhere. The CPMA is aimed at people who do that second job, or who want to move into it from coding, billing or compliance work. It tells an employer that you can review records against documented rules and explain your findings to the people responsible for them.