Certified Professional Coders assign codes to health treatments so medical providers can be paid. They need a bachelor’s degree in medical coding and pass the CPC exam. Coders can specialize and may move into other careers.
Being a Certified Professional Coder means you are a health information professional who enables hospitals, doctors’ offices, outpatient clinics, nursing homes or group practices to get paid for health services. Specifically, Certified Professional Coders read health treatment information and assign codes to those procedures so the information can be sent to insurance companies, Medicare or Medicaid. The specific codes must be entered correctly, because if errors are made in coding, it can reduce the amount paid by medical providers for the health services they provide.
Working as a Certified Professional Coder means working with procedural coding and diagnostic coding. For example, there are codes that a Certified Professional Coder uses to code the treatments doctors provide. There are Common Health Care Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes that pertain to products or services that physicians may provide to patients. Diagnostic codes are codes that pertain to specific diagnoses that doctors may give a patient. For example, if a patient complains of arm pain and the physician diagnoses the problem, there is a specific diagnosis code for arm pain.
Typically, to prepare for a career as a Certified Professional Coder, you need to complete high school and college. An associate degree can be taken, but individuals interested in becoming a Certified Professional Coder usually complete a bachelor’s degree in medical coding at an accredited college medical coding program. Upon completion of higher education, in order to obtain the proper certification, one must pass the Certified Professional Coder (CPC) exam, which is the foundational exam to become a Certified Professional Coder.
When they start working, coders often specialize. For example, a coder might choose to specialize in emergency medicine, oncology, or cardiology. At any given time, some specialties may be more in demand than others. Thus, some coders may be paid more than others because of the coding specialty they have chosen.
Needless to say, because they work with numbers and codes, coders tend to be very verbose. Also, they tend to be persistent because there are times when they may need to contact a doctor for more information about a treatment the doctor has given so that the appropriate code can be provided. They may also have to contact the insurance company regarding a specific claim.
Coders also tend to move into other careers after several years of coding experience. For example, coders might decide to become directors of health information or supervisors of coding. On the other hand, a coder might decide to go back to school and become a nurse, which would allow the option of working as a nurse-coder and potentially receive a higher rate of pay for coding services.
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