A medical coding specialist career could pay off well for those seeking to update their career and it requires more training. As thousands of jobs are being outsourced and sent overseas in every sector, for those fortunate enough to be within the employment ranks as medical coding, this sector is projected to grow faster than average for all jobs through 2016. Demand for medical coding services will be fueled by a growing and aging population. Older age groups receive more medical tests, treatments, and procedures that require documentation. A high level of demand for transcription services also will be sustained by the continued need for electronic documentation that can easily be shared among providers, third-party payers, regulators, consumers, and health information systems.
A growing numbers of medical coding and medical billing specialist positions will be needed to and identify discrepancies in medical reports, amend patients’ records, and edit documents from speech recognition systems. An increasing demand for standardized records should result in rapid employment growth in physicians’ offices, especially in large group practices. Medical coding held strong employment representation with about 105,000 jobs in 2004. About 4 out of 10 worked in hospitals and another 3 out of 10 worked in offices of physicians. Others worked for business support services; medical and diagnostic laboratories; outpatient care centers; and offices of physical, occupational and speech therapists, and audiologists.Compensation methods for medical coding vary. Some are paid based on the number of hours they work or on the number of lines they transcribe. The higher earners can forseeably expect more than $20 an hour. Being in the position of having medical coding certification could be a great career move.
Work conditions that some would envy are what many encounter that hold medical coding or medical billing certification. Professional transcriptionist can look forward to working in comfortable settings such as hospitals, physicians’ offices, transcription service offices, clinics, laboratories, medical libraries, government medical facilities, or their own homes. Many medical coding telecommute from home-based offices as employees or subcontractors for hospitals and transcription services or as self-employed, independent contractors.
Many medical coding work a standard 40-hour week. Self-employed medical coding are more likely to work irregular hours including part time, evenings, weekends, or on call at any time, but they enjoy many more freedoms outside of that. The future of medical coding jobs appear to be healthy and bright and shows no sign up declining anytime in the foreseeable future.
For more information on a career in the medical coding or billing field, visit med-certification.com or contact Med-Certification at 888-771-1902.