If you want an interesting job in healthcare, you might be interested in learning what is involved to pursue a career as a medical coder. Read on…
Healthcare is a huge industry that employs millions of people in all sorts of roles. And yet it is easy to forget about the staff who support the headline-grabbing, life-saving work done by doctors, nurses and surgeons.
Medical coders are a great example of this.
They serve a vital function in the smooth running of modern medicine. But rarely get the attention they deserve.
In fact, becoming a medical coder could be an excellent career option for anyone who wants to work in healthcare but doesn’t necessarily feel like they are the right fit for a patient-facing job.
As you might know, I am a bestselling wellness author. I founded a groundbreaking video course called The Anxiety Cure.
I love sharing insights and strategies to help people to live their healthiest, best life.
With this in mind I put together this quick guide on exploring a career as a medical coder.
Before you get a medical coding and billing certification, it is sensible to take a look at what this type of work actually involves.
It might sound like it has something to do with software coding. But in reality it is about bridging the knowledge and understanding gap between professional healthcare practitioners and the many non-experts that interact with them.
A simple explanation:
A medical coder is a form of translator, different than medical translation services. However, they don’t translate a foreign language. They translate complex medical terms into a form that anyone can digest without needing to spend years training as a physician.
This is chiefly required in a health insurance context. A medical coder will have to break down a diagnosis of a patient. Plus they’ll need to clearly explain the type of treatment they will need to receive. And they’ll need to interpret all of this so that insurers are up to speed with how this impacts policy holders.
In short, insurers need to know what they are being billed for. And a medical coder is the intermediary that demystifies the complex terms and treatments for them to make sure everything is unambiguously understood.
It is possible to build a career as a medical coding specialist. Although people in this role tend to broaden their horizons and increase their appeal to prospective employers by acquiring other skills.
Medical billing is one such skill. Plus, as the name suggests it is a role which involves putting together invoices for healthcare providers which are then sent to insurers to be paid after treatment has taken place.
A medical coder might double up as a medical biller. They both translate the terms and conjure up the invoice so that all parties are happy.
As mentioned earlier, becoming a certified coder can be part of making upward progress in this career. However, you will need to have adequate prior experience in this field before you can successfully apply for and complete the necessary exams.
You can still work in medical coding before this. But you will simply have apprentice status until you have earned your stripes.
One of the main reasons to start down the road to a career as a medical coder is that this is an in-demand profession. When you’re a medical coder, ou can find work in almost any part of the country. This is the universal nature of the healthcare industry in general. Happily it gives you a lot of flexibility.
Another thing to be aware of is that if you are an accredited and experienced coder, your earning potential can potentially be higher than if you lack these qualifications.
Do you like the sound of gaining extensive knowledge of medical terms? And are you interested in explaining these things in plain English to make sure the wheels of healthcare insurance turn smoothly? If so, look into a career as a medical coder. You could find it satisfying as well as monetarily rewarding.
Join my groundbreaking video course called The Anxiety Cure.
Think about subscribing for free weekly tools here.
No SPAM, ever! Read the Privacy Policy for more information.
