Enthusiasm Abounds at AAPC!
It's the second day at the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC) conference in Las Vegas, and the attendees are currently chowing down on breakfast. Yesterday's welcome session was high energy and humorous. AAPC directors took on roles in a skit and ran through a look at coding past, present and future, with music of the times highlighting the decades. The skit also touched on the history of AAPC itself, as well as innovations in health care.
This morning, the crowd of approximately 2,000 took in a presentation by AAPC CEO/President Reed Pew. Pew covered some new AAPC initiatives, like their ICD-10 timeline that will be available to members and personalized for their employment settings. Pew also spoke in detail about health care reform and the changes that appear to be on the horizon for the entire health care system. At the close of his presentation, Pew celebrated the fact that AAPC recently welcomed its 75,000th member, and now has 76,500 members. Next year, Pew surmises, the academy will have welcomed its 90,000th member by the time the national conference in Nashville, TN, comes around.
Pew was followed by Matt Jones, a three-time cancer survivor who went on to run a marathon (even though he was outrun by an 83-year-old man!) after re-learning how to walk. Jones' motivational talk had coders up and moving on this sunny Las Vegas morning.
There seem to be a high number of first-time attendees taking in the conference this year, and the mood of everyone seems to be excited and eager to learn. I'm heading off to a session on RACs in a few minutes, and will try to report back later this afternoon (Pacific time!) if the wi-fi connection holds out!