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Now it looks like coders are going to get screwed, too - time to get ducks in a row

Posted: Jun 26th, 2016 - 5:55 pm In Reply to: Missouri hospital outsourcing, 26 in-house MTs affected - Ex-NTMT

Anybody noticed this article in the latest "For the Record?"

Take a look at the bottom, especially where this sentence appears:

"Especially as the market matures and productivity increases with vendor-supplied technology, the cost advantages of outsourcing will make it harder and harder to justify the ICD-10 switch-driven, inflated in-house compensation models."

Here's the last part of the article, which contains the above sentence:

Coding's Future
Current forecasts point to a positive job outlook for coders. That's good news for third-party coders, says Belley, who believes outsourcing models have the potential to make coding professionals more versatile and well rounded. "Outsource coders have the opportunity to code records for many different facilities, which exposes them to a variety of surgical procedures, case types, and more," she points out. "They gain experience navigating through different EHRs as well as abstracting systems. There is an opportunity to learn about different natural language processing technologies. All of this makes the coding professional more employable and contributes to a competitive marketplace."

Kivi says the switch to ICD-10 has been good, in general, for the coding market. "In addition to the added training and technology investments, coder salaries spiked and continue to rise, at least for now," he notes. "Even more than six months past implementation, there are plenty of services or recruiting firms for in-house staff positions that are offering up to $7,500 sign-on bonuses for experienced inpatient coders."

Kivi expects the rising pay scale bubble will "inevitably burst," adding that the industry is seeing more coders start to moonlight part-time with service vendors, even though those hourly rates are lower than what they are paid at their "day jobs." "Unfortunately, that means they are effectively helping to eliminate the higher-paying in-house jobs and accelerating the shift to a predominantly outsourced industry model," he says. "Especially as the market matures and productivity increases with vendor-supplied technology, the cost advantages of outsourcing will make it harder and harder to justify the ICD-10 switch-driven, inflated in-house compensation models."

DiMarco says it will continue to be difficult for health care organizations to recruit staff and maintain in-house coding operations due to their lack of scale and ability to recruit and hire in such a competitive labor market. The nature of the remote workforce, coupled with competition over wages and benefits, education dollars, and broad career paths, will create challenges for hospitals and provider groups, he says.

(End of article)

(From "Coding and the Third-Party Option," For the Record, June, 2016, pp 14-17 by Selena Chavis.)


Notice that they say that there is a "positive" job outlook for coders, but then say that outsourcing will make them more valuable, it looks like by having to jump around from platform to platform. Oh yeah? It didn't make us more valuable. Guess the handwriting's on the wall. It's all about the money and how to remove decent, well-paying jobs from the economy.




LINK/URL: Now it looks like coders are going to get screwed, too

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