Common Medical Coding Acronyms and What They Mean

Acronyms. They’re prevalent in several industries and medical coding is no exception. In fact, medical coding might be more guilty of acronym usage than most industries. If you’re new to medical coding, this can be downright overwhelming. After all, who knows the difference between a CPC, a CPB and a CPMA? IDK.

Anyway, we’re here to help. Let’s go over a few of the most common medical coding acronyms, what they mean and how you can develop a method for quickly looking up or memorizing these acronyms to use in your daily life.

Common Medical Coding Acronyms

For starters, we’re not going to get into acronyms used for medical coding courses. These are good to know, of course, but they’re typically not used much on the “front-end” side of medical coding. (They’re more for resumes, job applications and so forth.) That being said, here are four acronyms you’ll likely come across as a medical coder:

• DM: Diabetes Mellitus
• HTN: Hypertension
• ESRD: End-Stage Renal Disease
• CKD: Chronic Kidney Disease

These four acronyms are for patient conditions, of course, and they’re some of the most common out there. You might not use them every day, but you will see them more often than other acronyms and will have to code accordingly. Now let’s cover how to know them better.

How to Know Medical Coding Acronyms Better

On the Medical Coding Academy store, we have not one, not two, not three, but four different sets of medical coding flashcards that will help with learning medical terminology, modifiers, medications and more. One of those flashcard sets deals with abbreviations and RX notations, which often have acronyms. Of course, your best bet is to get the four-flashcard set, which includes:

• 32 Medication Flashcards
• 35 Modifier Flashcards
• 81 Abbreviations/RX Notations Flashcards
• 143 Medical Terminology Flashcards

You’ll be well on your way to knowing medical coding acronyms and other verbiage like a seasoned professional. Good luck!

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2020. It has been updated for clarity, accuracy and new information.