I was taking a community college course on diagnostic health insurance coding. It was pretty easy. You essentially have a big book of codes and in the front are general categories that lead you pages with more specifics. So the instructor had us look up this one code that she figured out was like a Rube Goldberg machine of code searches. It was the code for “Monkey Pox.”
So I open it up the front part and start searching the Poxes until I find the entry “Pox(Simian)” follow that to the specifics page and get the specific code for a person having “Monkey Pox.” That was pretty straight forward I thought. The rest of the class is still working. After 10-15min the teacher asks if everyone has it. Class responds affirmatively. And she runs through this whole complicated process of how to find the Monkey Pox code.
The she asks “did everyone follow the same path” and the rest of the class is nodding I’m like “Nooooo” and she said “Well you must have gotten the wrong code.” Also “No.” “Well, how’d you find it then?” I described my same process as above. Incredulously she asks “How do you know what ‘simian’ means!?!?” At this point I can feel the whole class looking at me as if to say “yeah how DO you know what ‘simian’ means!?”
“Uhhh… I watched Planet of the Apes?” Which was slightly a lie. I mean I definitely caught parts of some of the Apes movies on TV when I was a kid but really I’m a bit of a word nerd. At any rate the answer appeased her and the rest of the class.