The full curriculum.

Epic feels like four hundred buttons until you learn the four ideas underneath. Patient → Encounter → Activities → Storyboard. Once those click, every screen makes sense.

• 1.1Hyperspace, decoded — what's actually on your screen
• 1.2Patient, encounter, activity — the mental model
• 1.3Storyboard — the column that runs your day
• 1.4Logging in safely — secure mode, breakglass, F1 help

Cadence is Epic's scheduling module. It's also the front office MA's home base. Reading the schedule, finding open slots, understanding visit types, recognizing flags — this is the foundation everything else sits on.

• 2.1Department schedule — the morning scan
• 2.2Visit types and time slots — why a "follow-up" is 15 min and "new patient" is 60
• 2.3Booking an appointment — the clean flow
• 2.4Reschedules and cancellations — without losing the slot

The check-in is choreographed: ID + DOB, demographics confirm, RTE, signed forms, arrived. Every variation introduces risk. Master the standard flow and the exceptions become quick.

• 3.1The two-identifier rule — name + DOB, every time
• 3.2Confirming demographics — the four fields that change quietly
• 3.3Signed forms — HIPAA, financial responsibility, advance directives
• 3.4Marking arrived — what happens downstream when you do

The single most important skill for a front office MA. Insurance plans, payer language, RTE responses, copay vs deductible vs coinsurance, primary/secondary order, and the words to say when something doesn't match.

• 4.1Real-Time Eligibility — running it rightSample available
• 4.2Reading an insurance card — the seven fields that matter
• 4.3Updating coverage when the plan has changed
• 4.4Coordination of benefits — primary, secondary, who bills first
• 4.5HMO, PPO, HDHP, EPO — what each one means at the desk
• 4.6Copay collection — the cash workflow and the receipts

Prior auth is the bureaucracy of medicine. Referrals close the loop or drop the ball. The MA initiates both. The provider signs. The payer decides. And the MA follows up until something happens — that follow-up is the work.

• 5.1Prior auth, demystified — what triggers it, who does what
• 5.2Submitting a PA in Epic (CoverMyMeds workflow)
• 5.3Inbound referrals — when another office sends you a patient
• 5.4Outbound referrals — closing the loop your provider opened
• 5.5Following up on pending PAs — the discipline that prevents disaster

Phones and MyChart messages are the same workload in two different surfaces. Triage, document, route, follow up. The four-bucket rule of thumb. And the lines that separate "great front desk" from "great front desk who never gets complaints."

• 6.1Telephone Encounters — the medical-legal record of every call
• 6.2In Basket pools — the four-bucket triage protocol
• 6.3MyChart message templates that save you hours a week
• 6.4Activating MyChart at check-in — proxy access for elders and minors

Recall lists, waitlists, no-show recovery, double-bookings, provider preferences, recurring appointments, blocked slots, vacation coverage. The advanced moves of a scheduler who's actually running the schedule, not surviving it.

• 7.1Recall lists — turning "see you next year" into a booked appointment
• 7.2No-show recovery — the call that wins back the patient
• 7.3Same-day add-ons — protecting the schedule when the provider says "fit them in"
• 7.4Provider preferences — coding the unwritten rules

Telling a patient the copay is $80. Explaining a high deductible. Handling a denied card. Offering a payment plan. Walking someone through charity care. These are scripts you rehearse — and the difference between a clinic patients return to and one they don't.

• 8.1The copay conversation — three sentences that work
• 8.2High-deductible plans — why they shock people, what to say
• 8.3Payment plans — Sutter's options, how to set them up
• 8.4Charity care & financial assistance — the application, eligibility, dignity
• 8.5Self-pay patients — uninsured, undocumented, between jobs

Wrong-patient prevention. HIPAA at the front desk. The California MA scope of practice (16 CCR 1366). Audit trails. What happens when something goes wrong and how to document it correctly.

• 9.1Wrong-patient prevention — the two-tab trap
• 9.2HIPAA in the lobby — what you say, who can hear it
• 9.3California MA scope (16 CCR 1366)
• 9.4Auditing your own work — finding errors before someone else does

Most front office MAs never see a claim. This module fixes that. The revenue cycle, end to end. CPT and ICD-10 codes. The CMS-1500 form. Charge entry. Claim submission. Adjudication. Payment posting. AR follow-up. Every front office decision touches every step.

• 10.1The revenue cycle — registration to payment in one diagram
• 10.2CPT codes — what was done
• 10.3ICD-10 codes — why it was done
• 10.4The CMS-1500 form — a claim, decoded
• 10.5Clean claim vs rejected claim vs denied claim — three different problems

CO-16. CO-22. PR-1. CO-50. CO-29. The codes you'll see every shift in billing. Each one is a story: a missing field, a wrong primary, a deductible, a not-medically-necessary, a missed timely filing. Learn the ten and you can read 80% of the denials in a typical work queue.

• 11.1The top 10 denial codes — and what each one is asking forSample available
• 11.2CO-16 — missing or invalid information
• 11.3CO-22 / CO-23 — coordination of benefits issues
• 11.4PR-1 / PR-2 / PR-3 — patient deductible, coinsurance, copay
• 11.5CO-50 — not medically necessary
• 11.6CO-29 — timely filing missed

A walk-through of Epic's Resolute Professional Billing — the module the billing team lives in. Work queues, claim edits, charge review, AR follow-up. By the end, you've watched someone work through a real-feeling claim from edit to payment posted, and you know what an interview for a billing role will actually ask you.

• 12.1Resolute Professional Billing — the dashboard tour
• 12.2Work queues — claim edits, charge review, denials
• 12.3Working a single claim from edit to clean
• 12.4Posting a payment, posting an adjustment
• 12.5Pitching yourself for the billing team — what to say at your annual review