What is Medical Coding?
In US healthcare, the process of paying money to physician is done through a RCM (Revenue cycle Management) cycle. In US, the patient don’t pay money directly to physician. The doctors receive their money through Insurance companies which are also called payer. Now, here the total procedure is filed in a medical claim which explain everything about the patient diagnosis and treatment. Now, the claim doesn’t explain these things in words but with numerical codes. These codes are called Medical codes in the field of Medical coding. Medical coding is all about applying correct numerical codes to diagnosis and procedure performed. ICD codes are applied to diagnosis and CPT codes are applied to Procedures. The professional giving codes are called medical coders. So, medical coders work in between physician and payer.
Medical coding as a career
Medical coding as a career has a lot of potential. It’s like an ocean to gain the knowledge. There are so many specialities to learn. The more you work on different cases of patient report the more you get exposed to different scenarios. This involves a lot of analysis work, which code should be perfect to code or which modifier should be used. To become a Certified coders different exam are organized by AAPC and AHIMA. The most common of them is CPC (Certified Professional Coder) conducted by AAPC. CPC is multiple choice question exam which has 150 questions which has to be finished in 5 hour 30 minutes. If you manage your time during the exam and attempt all the question, its is highly possible to clear the exam because there is no negative markings. CCS (Certified Coding Specialist) is also many coder prefer to apply for which is conducted by AHIMA. CCS is having both subjective and objective question and it is considered one to toughest exam to clear. Day by day the number of professional coder is increasing and we have a lot of certified coders in the market today.
Read also: Learn how to read and code a Medical report
Job opportunities in Medical Coding
Now, if we see the amount of work is getting outsourced from US in healthcare the demand of medical coders is getting increased. So, required for job of medical coder is also increased proportionally. The mostly hottest destination for medical coders is India, Philippines and UAE. In India, almost a decade the amount of medical coding companies have increased too much. Philippines is also big hub for medical coders. UAE is also have a lot of bunch of coders especially in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. UAE is consider the best place for medical coders because of the facilities you get while working their.
Read also: how to prepare and clear CPC exam in first attempt
How to Grow in Medical Coding Field
As I have mention this field is like an ocean, so one have to grow each and every day. Today Coders who are having knowledge only about outpatient are preferred less compare to those who have knowledge in both outpatient and inpatient coding. So, the main thing to focus is keep learning new facilities in this field. A multi-speciality coder is having more exposure to coding live charts than a single speciality coder. Hence, its obvious having more knowledge means having more chance to grow in this field. Now, with the implementation of ICD-10 in within few months, I would suggest all of you to start learning new codes as well. The faster you learn the faster you will able to apply these new ICD-10 in medical coding charts.
Hope, you will now have a better knowledge about medical coding. If you have question or suggestion about my blog or article please comment. Thank you…!!