Anyone do medical coding/billing?

[kaisersozei]

I just typed up a long post but got booted off when I hit Submit.

Anyway, the gist of it was this:

I'm not a coder, but I've run hospitals & medical practices for years. Coding is a decent career choice if your personality drives you toward accuracy & precision, and you have an analytical mind. As Carlos says, not sure what $17k gets you, as there are on-line resources that will prepare you for the various certification exams. If you haven't already, check out these two sites:

http://www.aapc.com/

http://www.ahima.org/coding/index.asp

The demand for these jobs has been fairly steady. With the advent of Electronic Medical Records, much of the coding process will be automated. EMR adoption is a big part of every federal reform initiative, so they'll be much more prevalent in the next few years. Will change the scope & focus of the job that coders are doing, but I think there will still be a need for these, especially at the institutional level.

Good luck & let me know if you need any help.