Strategic Career Planning for Medical Coders!

  by: MCP Administrator 

Do a Career Strategic Plan, Document Your Progress, Reward your Successes!

 

You are a CPC, or CCS-P:

Outpatient Coder - An outpatient coder performs medical coding in a variety of outpatient health care settings. These include emergency rooms, hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, physician offices, and clinics.

 

Consider your next step as:

Inpatient Coder - An inpatient coder is holds an AHIMA CCS and is responsible for accurate assignment of diagnosis related groups (DRGs), diagnostic and procedural codes using ICD-9-CM for inpatient health information records.

 

·         AHIMA, CCS:  www.ahima.com

 

You are already a CCS, consider:

Traveling Coder - This type of coder generally works for a company that has contracts with several health care organizations and travels from facility to facility performing medical coding.

 

You are an experienced and a disciplined CPC, CPC-H, CCS-P, CCS, consider:

At-Home Coder - An at-home coder completes the coding process from home using electronically transmitted records.

   

You’re a super medical documentation interpreter and coder, consider:

 

Coding Auditor - A coding auditor performs DRG optimization audits on inpatient and outpatient records and reviews the results of audits with coding staff and coding management to resolve noncompliance and inaccuracy issues.

 

·         Outpatient: AAPC’s Certified Professional Medical Auditor (CPMA®): http://www.aapc.com/certification/cpma.aspx

·         Inpatient/Outpatient:  American Association of Medical Audit Specialists (AAMAS), Certified Medical Audit Specialist (CMAS)®: http://www.aamas.org/certification/becoming-cmas.html  

 

Consultant - The responsibility of a consultant is to assist clients and provide support for creation, maintenance and ongoing operation of an efficient and accurate system of reimbursement and documentation. A consultant also reviews billing protocols and procedures to assure compliance will all regulatory and governmental requirements.

 

·         Professional, subject matter expert (SME) with good written and verbal communication skills and excellence in customer service.

 

Healthcare Regulations intrigues you!  Consider:

 

Privacy Officer - A privacy officer oversees all ongoing activities related to the development of, implementation of, maintenance of, and adherence to the organization’s policies and procedures covering the privacy of, and access to, patient health information in compliance with federal and state laws and the healthcare organization’s information privacy practices.

 

·         AAPC’s Certified Professional Compliance Officer - CPCO™: http://www.aapc.com/certification/cpco.aspx

·         American Institute of Healthcare Compliance, Inc., Medical Compliance Officer Certification (CMCO) - www.aihc-assn.org

 

Do you like to teach others what you know?   Consider:

Medical Coding Instructor - A medical coding instructor educates students about diagnostic and procedural coding. The training of medical coders can be provided by an instructor in a classroom setting or an online setting. This can include the training of new coders, as well as providing continuing education opportunities for current coders.

 

·         Requires one degree higher than those you are teaching, e.g., in the classroom you need an AS to teach Diploma (9 months), or BS to teach AS, or Masters or Terminal degree (PhD/Ed) to teach BS, MS.  Online teaching generally requires a minimum of a Master’s degree.

 

Do you like to facilitate teamwork, teach, delegate and have oversight of workflow? Consider:

Coding Supervisor - A coding supervisor provides support for and works to plan, review, and implement the policies and processes surrounding the coding and abstracting functions and maintains responsibilities for all coding functions, including appropriate staff productivity and development, implementation and monitoring of the coding compliance plan.

 

Are you a professional, multi-tasking, take charge leader with a strong business focus and thick skin? Consider:

Practice Manager – responsible for medical office business processes, workflow, corporate compliance, quality in health services and customer services, oversees or performs medical office accounting, monitors physician reimbursement, managed care contracting, oversee the  revenue cycle management, human resource management, marketing activities, business relationships, HIPAA and data security, and health information technologies (practice management systems), electronic medical record, and health information exchange.

 

·   Certified Physician Practice Manager (CPPM™) http://www.aapc.com/certification/practice-manager-certification.aspx

 

 

You have a passion for HIMs?  Consider:

Health Information Manager - A health information manager is responsible for

the management of all aspects of the health information department, including revenue

cycle management, coding, transcription, utilization review, and chart review

       

·         Requires both a Degree from an AHIMA/CAHIIM approved school and an AHIMA Certification as an RHIT (Associate in Science level and Registered Health Information Technologists), or an RHIA (Bachelors Level, and Registered Health Information Administrator).

 

·         See:  CAHIIM accredited schools for RHIT/RHIA degrees: http://www.cahiim.org/accredpgms.asp

 

Are you a numbers person; love to do research, analyze the codes, utilization, indices, do reports with executive summaries, work well under timelines?  Consider:

Medical Financial/Strategic Analyst- Responsible for interpreting, analyzing and delivering complex medical reports within the prescribed turnaround time. The nature of the work performed is repetitive or patterned, requiring extensive depth of experience. Jobs include the medical analyst responsible for daily productivity reports, budget reports, charge master maintenance and reports, inpatient and outpatient coordinators, quality assurance analysts and more.