Editorial Reviewer
Jess P., CPC
Certified Professional Coder (CPC), credentialed by AAPC. Reviews HCC Buddy guides, code references, and worked examples for accuracy against current CMS-HCC and ICD-10-CM guidance.
Risk adjustment is a field where a single wording difference decides whether a diagnosis is reportable. Jess P., CPC has spent years coding risk-adjustment charts — abstracting ICD-10-CM diagnoses, mapping them to the right HCC, and judging whether the note supports the code or just suggests it.
That experience is what backs the HCC Buddy guidance. When you see “Medically reviewed by Jess P., CPC” on a page, the HCC mappings, RAF references, and MEAT documentation notes in that piece were checked against the current fiscal-year CMS sources — the active CMS-HCC model (V28 for PY2026) and the CMS ICD-10-CM code set — not a third-party summary, before it went live.
Risk-adjustment coding
Years of hands-on risk-adjustment coding — abstracting ICD-10-CM diagnoses, mapping them to HCC categories, and weighing specificity against what the documentation will actually support on audit.
MEAT documentation
Applying the MEAT standard — Monitor, Evaluate, Assess, Treat — to separate a billable ICD-10 mapping from an audit-supported diagnosis, and writing the guidance that keeps that line visible to coders.
CMS model transitions
Tracking the CMS-HCC V24-to-V28 transition through its phase-in years so the guidance reflects the model actually in effect — V28 at 100% for PY2026 — rather than last year's RAF weights.
Credential
Certified Professional Coder (CPC), credentialed by the AAPC — the certification for professional medical coders working in ICD-10-CM, CPT, and HCPCS.
Reference guides
The HCC Buddy hubs Jess P., CPC reviews against current CMS guidance:
Recently reviewed
Read more about the project on the About HCC Buddy page, or see how sources are handled on Coding Sources.