‘Is This School AAPC Accredited?’

For all the people who keep asking if a school is AAPC accredited, brace yourselves and listen up!

The AAPC is not an accrediting agency. Let’s dive deeper.

Is Accreditation Important?

Accreditation is the process by which a governing agency (typically known as CAHIM) ensures a college or university’s instruction is up to par but mostly it enables the school to participate in federally funded financial aid.  In other words, schools that are ACCREDITED offer financial aid and grants.

Being accredited ALSO ensures an employer, or even another school will recognize your DEGREE. Notice the word DEGREE!  In Medical Coding, degrees fade to the background because in medical coding certifications take the highest-ranking… it’s all about the credentials in this line of work… degrees either make no difference or very little.

Licenses vs. Accreditations

Now listen I want to be clear that the types of schools I’m referring to right now are colleges and universities. you know, schools like Penn Foster, Keiser, Bryan, Kaplan, Everest… those are all colleges and universities. Okay, stay with me. It is THESE types of schools that NEED accreditation. The AAPC is not a college or university, and neither are all the other non-college coding schools you all are looking at, including ours. 

For this reason, medical coding schools aren’t accredited. THESE types of schools need to be LICENSED by their states in order to teach coding programs to their students… licensed, not accredited. Being a licensed school by your state means you have been given the seal of approval after meeting all state requirements to be a licensed school. When you choose a school, that school is licensed by their state, but your credential is nationally recognized. The credential that you receive from AAPC or AHIMA will be not be tied to the state your school was licensed in, but rather it will be recognized by all states all the way to kingdom come.

Conclusion

Once again, AAPC is not an accrediting agency. Therefore, AAPC cannot accredit any school. I’m bringing this to the surface because, for whatever reason, way too many souls out there are stressing themselves out that “oh my goodness I need to find AAPC accredited school.”

Here’s the deal.  AAPC is simply one of the two major credentialing organizations, the other being AHIMA, that offer certification exams.