I'm also new and figuring this out as I go along! I just started Practicode this week.
There is NO training in it whatsoever. It's meant to be practical experience ... so there's no educational modules. After a short intro to explain how it works *boom* ... here's chart number one - code it! After I stared at it for 30 seconds my training kicked back in ... ok ... that's right ... I know how to do this.
Just like you were filling out the fields of a CMS-1500 or some electronic encoder, you enter the CPTs, Modifiers, Units, and Dx codes you would bill and tell it to grade it. For each chart, there are a certain number of "points" ... for example, 4 points if they are looking for 1 CPT, Units, and 2 Dx. It will tell you that you got 3 of 4, show you the chart, and if you keep scrolling to the bottom you will find the rationale. You put this CPT but the correct one is this. You are allowed to retake and practice as much as you like so you have to go back and do it again and cannot continue until 100% correct (but you now have the correct answer so that's not a problem). I haven't reached the assessments yet but 70% is required to pass and you only get 3 attempts on those.
It's not bad. One could even argue it's like real life... you enter the codes, send if off to the insurance... and they say "nope, not paying it, try again!"
I looked through the forums when I was trying to decide to buy it and saw numerous complaints about "wrong" answers. Even though I'm only on chart #30 of the first 200, I've already run into it. There's a big disclaimer during the brief intro that the answers were "crowd sourced" to real coders the the "correct" answer is what the majority of coders in the field would code. The problem I've seen is that I will get a dx wrong and it will say in the rational something like "since the dx is vanilla icecream with chocolate and sprinkles, the correct dx code is: XYZ.123" ... I re-read the chart 5 times and there is no mention of chocolate or sprinkles anywhere which is why I coded XYZ.1! Oh well, it's annoying that I got it "wrong" and have to redo it but there's no penalty for being wrong. Even if there ends up being an error or two in the assessment it shouldn't keep me passing so no reason to make a big deal out of it.
I work in Pediatrics and my duties are more Billing than Coding so I signed up for Practicode to gain some more Coding experience especially in other fields. While I wouldn't say I'm super impressed by it (the interface is clunky/slow going question to question or going back to repeat a question)... it's ok for my needs and I feel I am gaining "practical experience" by doing it. It will help remove my "-A" sooner and while I wouldn't put it on my resume or try to claim it as experience to a potential employer, if I chose to change jobs/fields I could at least speak intelligently about things like "open reduction, internal fixation"! Instead of being the interviewee with the deer in the headlights look just nodding my head pretending I understand.
I'm big on education and this is a tool ... it is what you make out if it. You can get it wrong, enter the right answer and just move on ... or you can compare your choices to the correct answer and see where you went wrong and learn from it... but it's on YOU to do it, the program won't hold your hand. See a term you don't understand, look it up. I've learned a lot this week approaching it with that mindset.