The demand for healthcare professionals will continue growing over the next decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This increasing in demand will also coincide with a demand for skilled medical coders and billers. This means that employers will offer flexible schedules and quality benefits to attract and retain medical professionals.
Is Medical Coding a Good Career?
Coding is an excellent career for individuals interested in the medical field who do not want a hands-on role in patient care. Success in the profession requires dedication, resiliency, and the ability to adapt to changing needs and tasks.
A medical coding career enables you to help people, collaborate with other professionals on high-level projects, and grow as an individual. Formal education through a vocational school maximizes your ability to break into the industry and accelerates your rise through the ranks.
Why Would Someone Be Interested in Becoming a Medical Coder?
Medical coding is a dynamic career with unique challenges. It’s an excellent field if you enjoy researching, solving complex problems, and collaborating with other skilled professionals. The job requires you to interpret complex medical information received from doctors and translate it into easy-to-understand bills for insurance companies. You will work between the clinical and business sides of the healthcare industry to help patients.
Variety of Tasks
You should consider coding if you’re bored by monotony and tedious tasks. Medical billing requires the continual review of new and distinct cases. You’ll also be responsible for multiple steps in the billing process, from chart review to filing appeals. Each workday will differ because your tasks will vary as each case progresses through the revenue cycle. Individuals who enjoy the challenge of multitasking are well suited for the career.
Research
Every medical service performed by a doctor must be reviewed and billed. Medical coding is excellent for people who enjoy delving into complex information. Medical coders must use coding manuals, reference scientific texts, and review coverage plans to determine how they generate bills for unique services.
Additionally, medical coders must remain current on newly developed treatments and revisions to coding policies. Each medical advancement must be understood to properly code and bill insurance.
Problem Solving
Every case is unique because a patient’s history, diagnosis, treatment, and insurance coverage will be one-of-a-kind. This differentiation makes it impossible to train for every scenario that needs coding. Individuals who enjoy unraveling tangled problems and generating solutions are ideal medical coders.
You’ll use the foundational knowledge from vocational training each day to comprehend the challenges you face in the workplace and discern the nature of medical records. Each case will present obstacles that you may not have seen before. You may collaborate with other medical coders to find the best answer. As a medical coder, you may partner with clinicians to strategize solutions to challenges your facility faces with compliance and upholding medical record standards.
Impact Patients’ Lives
Although medical coders are not directly involved with patient treatment, they are vital parts of the healthcare system. Medical billing professionals continually review medical documentation for completeness and accuracy. This check ensures chart notes are properly maintained, helping promote patient safety.
Additionally, medical coding keeps the entire reimbursement cycle moving. Without medical billers, facilities would be unable to provide critical care.
Esteemed Profession
Medical coders are professionals who possess a dedication to their community, strong work ethics, and a high level of ability. They are viewed as leaders and trusted sources of valuable knowledge by their peers.
What Does a Medical Coder Do?
Medical coders work alongside clinicians to create invoices for rendered medical services. Their primary task is to review medical records for accuracy and completeness. They then translate the patient’s diagnoses and treatments into an alphanumeric code based on their understanding of the chart. The medical coder then creates an invoice for each billable service. They must maximize the reimbursement for each claim while adhering to ethical standards to ensure they only bill for services documented in the medical record.
Depending on the size of their employer and the scope of their position, they may also submit the claims to the insurer, verify receipt, and follow up on missing claims. Medical coders are also responsible for reviewing rejected claims for validity and responding to the insurers with a written appeal to obtain payment.
What Makes Medical Coding a Good Career?
Medical coding is a good career for hardworking individuals who manage their time effectively and persevere through adversity. The challenging nature of the work provides many direct and indirect benefits.
Work Independently
Medical coders typically work on their own. As a medical coder, you’ll be directly responsible for the cases that you are assigned. This accountability allows you to manage your performance. Rather than in team settings, where outcomes may be out of your control, your productivity and success will directly reflect on you.
Employers understand that coding is detail-oriented and requires focus. They position their medical coders to work independently, allowing them to focus on their tasks without interruption.
Flexible Opportunities
Any facility that provides medical care needs coders. There are opportunities in private practices, hospitals, long-term care facilities, rehabilitation centers, and outpatient clinics. You’ll be able to find a job that suits your interests.
This flexibility allows you to specialize. You can focus on working with surgeons or primary care providers if a particular field is more engaging to you. Additionally, there are opportunities with third-party coding services or insurance companies. You can review claims from the other side of the billing cycle.
In-Demand Industry
Medical coding is a highly structured and regulated field. Employers only want well-trained professionals who understand the challenges they will face. The pool of quality candidates cannot keep up with demand. Medical coders with formal education will have many employment opportunities.
Advancement Potential
Employers strive to retain and promote effective medical coders. Successful individuals can progress to supervisory, quality control, or consulting positions. As you gain a deeper understanding of the nuances and challenges of coding through experience, you’ll become an indispensable resource to your fellow coworkers.
How Do You Become a Medical Coder?
An easy way to become a medical coder is by attending a medical billing and coding program at a vocational school. These institutions structure their coursework to prepare you for a job as a medical billing and coding specialist. They help you acquire the theoretical knowledge and practical skills you need to thrive as a medical coder.
What Do You Learn During a Medical Billing and Coding Program?
The curriculum covers the necessary knowledge to succeed as a medical coder. Instructors lead case studies using real-world examples to walk you through reading and interpreting medical information. Most of your courses involve coding and completing billing tasks using sample medical records.
Developing your practical skills with hands-on learning ensures you enter the workforce with confidence. Courses will also help you sharpen the critical thinking and investigatory traits every medical coding professional needs.
Billing Basics
Federal law standardized the billing process, requiring all healthcare providers and insurers to adhere to the same format and conventions. You’ll learn the criteria for complete bills, industry-wide best practices, and each aspect of the bill submission, review, and collection processes.
ICD-10 Coding
The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10) is the globally used coding language. You will learn how to read the ICD-10 manuals so you can research and apply codes correctly. The course includes anatomy and pathophysiology concepts you’ll need to transfer narrative clinical data into the proper codes.
Learning ICD-10 is akin to learning a second language. You will develop the skills to filter, assess, and categorize relevant clinical information.
CPT/HCPCS Coding
The Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) and Current Procedure Terminology (CPT-4) include coding for procedures, durable medical equipment, diseases, illnesses, and medical supplies. You’ll learn to apply proper codes, the standards for medical necessity, and how to use modifiers to ensure bills are comprehensive and reflect the course of a patient’s care.
Your course will include discussions of billing ethics to ensure you understand the potential for waste, fraud, and abuse. You’ll become an expert at detecting errors and cases of coding overreach.
Advanced Clinical Coding
Advanced clinical coding courses cover complex diagnostic and treatment situations. You need advanced knowledge to properly select codes for intricate cases. Topics include disease progression and relevant diagnostic testing, procedures, and medications. The coursework features advanced discussions of drug types, brand and generic names, and chemical definitions.
You will sharpen your reading skills to help prioritize valuable clinical data in complex documentation. This ability will help you code efficiently and correctly.
Inpatient Coding
Inpatient coding concerns the conventions of working in a hospital facility where patients are admitted, treated, and discharged. The course will emphasize the mandatory components of inpatient medical records, how patients progress through a hospital, coding topics essential to admitted patients, and the nuances of capturing all billable codes from medical records.
Coding Based on Operative Reports
Medical coding for operative reports covers how to read and understand narrative documentation about surgical procedures, treatments, and other operations. You’ll learn strategies for properly breaking down the pre-operative, operative, and post-operative sections of medical records.
The course teaches research strategies for investigating information you are unfamiliar with and the methodology for generating an accurate operative bill. Instructors discuss advanced topics in pathology and follow-up testing as well.
Health Information Technology
Health information technology courses familiarize you with the nuances of health information systems by using real-world software. The instructor highlights the elements of a complete medical record, best practices for health data management, and cyber security concerns.
You will maximize your computer literacy, so you enter the workforce with a very short learning curve, allowing you to perform well from your first day.
Want to Learn More?
Did learning about a career as a medical coder interest you? Ready to attend Medical Insurance Billing & Coding program at Meridian College? Medical Billing and Coding professionals are responsible for keeping the records, charts, and bills in a medical office in order. In addition to the classroom experiences, students will also complete an externship for on-the-job training that will bring them further expertise. Contact us to learn more about.
Contact Meridian College today to learn more about becoming a medical billing and coding specialist.