Medical Coding At Home: Catching The Upside Of Obama's Stimulus Plan

With Congress passing a comprehensive stimulus plan and President Obama signing it, the country is looking forward to financial recovery. A large part of the plan is a provision to modernize the country's health care information technology. The provision, if implemented correctly, is expected to lower the cost of healthcare and the savings will pass on to the consumers as lower cost of insurance, medical services, and medicine.

It's a fantastic plan. Many large hospitals have been implementing enterprise application integration since the mid-90's. The integration initiative probably stemmed from the Y2K projects. But the cost-saving measures were recognized as a side result. Back then, many analysts priced the cost of integration in the billions of dollars. Out of reach for small hospitals and physicians networks. The stimulus plan will provide funds so that smaller organizations, namely small hospitals, solo practitioners and physicians networks may undertake information technology modernization projects.

The health care technology modernization program will make it efficient for different medical organizations to share information on patient records, as there is often a need to do so, especially when collaborating on treating the patient. When implemented, it will take less time to process claims and less paper to maintain and store patient records. That's because patient records and the methods to access them will be computerized. Large storage facilities using rows of file folders will no longer be needed. Ink and paper, especially the expensive formatted paper, will not be needed as much or at all. Additionally, what normally would take minutes to days to retrieve information from stored file folders can all be done in seconds with computers.

The cost savings and efficiency measures are necessary because the US population is getting older. Seniors need medical attention as part of their routine. Remember the baby boomers? The hippie generation is getting older, but still live actively. Constant health care allows them to pursue new hobbies and activities not traditionally pursued by seniors of the generation before them.

What does this mean to a medical coder? It means jobs. The health care system already relies on medical coders to maintain the standards of data input. Whenever a patient visits his doctor, the records of his visit must be entered in the system carefully and accurately in case another doctor needs to see it for emergency. The growing patient base will require scaling of everything health care, including medical coding.

For a certified medical coder with entrepreneurial tendency, solo practitioners, small physicians network, and dental offices are prime candidates to becoming clients for a home-based medical coding and billing practice.

Traditionally, small medical offices do not have the money to hire an in-house medical coder. Sometimes, they have one of the untrained office administrators do the requisite medical coding work for billing and insurance claim. The result is not always up to par with industry standards, but it got them by. Such ragtag practice will likely not work anymore with the new stimulus plan because in order for the cost saving measure to take effect, the data must be standardized throughout the nation.

A certified medical coder with the proper experience have the right skills and knowledge to jump in and start working. More importantly, if the medical coder has the right contacts, i.e. knows the doctor who owns a solo practice or the office manager, then he or she can arrange for assignments. The patient records can be picked up, enter the medical coding from home and returned them in a digital format. The routine can be scaled up into a homegrown business which has become the dream of many Americans.

Medical coding is a flexible career in healthcare. If you don't like owning your own business, then you can work for an agency or a hospital. To become one is also flexible. The trend for many students is to attend any the medical billing coding online schools for convenience.

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