I’ve been looking for a possible career change, and would like to find a career that is in demand in small towns. Someone told me the demand for medical records coders is very high, especially in the outstate areas. I went to a local technical college and the department head there said that is indeed true. I checked a website for a medical records coding association and they said the demand is expected to increase rapidly in the future.
I then began looking at hospital job postings but did not see many listings for coders. I was told most coders are hired by medical clinics.
I’ve been down this road before. Sometimes professionals in a field talk that field up but then when the students graduate, they find there aren’t that many jobs after all or the field is flooded with grads. (aka the computer field).
Can those of you dopers who are familiar with medical records coding confirm there is indeed a good demand for coders in smaller towns, or if I complete this program do I run the risk of completing a time consuming and expensive program and not finding many jobs? And by the way, where are the jobs in this field?
I’m a now-former coder who decided to leave the profession after having had one too many bad jobs. I took a year-long course in medical records coding in Texas and am eligible to sit for both the Certified Coding Specialist and the Certified Professional Coder exams.
What most smaller-town practices really want is a jack-of-all-trades who will do billing, insurance, and customer service in addition to straight coding. In fact, almost all of the professional practices I’ve worked for used a “superbill”, or a pre-coded charge sheet. Check one box for diagnosis and another for procedure, enter data into the computer, and voila! Instant insurance claim. So, unless the doctor or nurse screwed up the form, there’s little, if anything, to code.
You’re also competing against computer software. Many offices are now going to push-button solutions like specialty computer software where all the person has to do is enter data. Most insurance claims are electronically filed, so the software does all the thinking.
I’m not trying to dissuade you. If you really want to be a coder, by all means, go for it. However, in spite of what the cool commercials tell you (and Lord knows there are a LOT of those where I live), the job market for coders is limited, and that is especially true in smaller towns. If you want to pursue this career choice, your best bet might be in a larger city where you have more opportunities, more specialties to pick from, and better benefits packages.
What I would ask the school is how many of their graduates are placed in a coding (or at least billing) job after graduation, and where those jobs are. I would also go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website and look at the numbers for coders.
E-mail me at robincartwright at yahoo dot com if you want to.
Robin
My mom is a medical records coder. She loves it.
She has worked for two different hospitals, doing coding, HIT and quality assurance. She went through the ranks very quickly becoming the second head of her department in just a few years.
I have some friends at my hospital who have done this for years, but they are going back to college this fall for a carreer change because their jobs are going to be outsourced.
From what i gather chit-chatting with the HIM coders at the hospital i work at, they are mostly pleased with it. I think it takes a special person to be able to sit down in front of a huge monitor and use 4 programs at once (HIM software, 3M codes, Stedman’s, CD player with Kenny G) for 8 hours a day. And from what i’ve seen it takes some talent to do this as well. Since most of the documents are filled out by doctors and then scanned into a system which is then displayed on their screen, they have developed this power to actually be able to read doctors’ hand-writing like reading a book.
My wife has a RHIA (Registered Health Information Administrator) degree, and she decided right after graduating that she wanted some coding experience before trying to direct a department. She is now an inpatient coder at a smallish hospital here in SC, and is very pleased with her job. There is always a demand here, and they have several agency coders who come in to fill the gaps. It seems as if most coders in this area average between $35-40K per year, depending on degree and/or experience. That’s not a huge load of cash, but here in the deep south, that’s not bad considering the low lost of living.