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Medical coding - wanted to get CCS certification? - Rachel

Posted: Sep 16, 2012

I have been a medical transcriptionist for just over 10 years but I am now looking into coding. I was hoping for some info on this. How easy is it to get a job working from home? Is it hard to get a job straight out of school? What would be the best school if I wanted to get CCS certification? I have heard that Andrews School was a good one but would love input from everyone. Thanks!

Lots of information below on this board - Coding has been good to me

[ In Reply To ..]
You will find more detailed answers and discussion below on this board. In brief, though . . .

How easy is it to get a job working from home? Not easy at all. Until recently, it was difficult to send records out. With EMRs, it is easier, but coding requires a lot of experience and drive to do it well without supervision and assistance. If employers allow remote situations at all, they are going to require you to work in-house for months or a year, or even more. You may also be required to work on-site at intervals, to attend training and meetings, etc. If you do go home, they may require that you have a dedicated room for a formal office, that you have video capability in order to communicate with facility staff, that you dress in business clothing, etc.

Coded work is also audited by in-house and outside auditors with the expectation of 98% accuracy. If your accuracy drops below that, you may find yourself back in the office the next day.

Is it hard to get a job straight out of school? It is exactly the same as all other occupations . . . very difficult to get a job straight out of school. Employers all want experience because nobody wants to hire someone only to find out that they cannot do the work because firing them is too difficult and costly.

New coders have to really work at it to get a job. The better the education and the better the credentials, the easier it is. Which credential depends on the work you want to do. At a minimum, outpatient coders need a CPC and inpatient coders need a CCS. However, having just one limits you in terms of job possibilities.

The plan this board recommends is to get both the CPC and the CCS, so that you qualify for any kind of coding job, whether it is physician-based or hospital-based. That can overcome some employer reluctance to hire a new graduate because the CCS is very difficult and passing it makes a statement about your intelligence and training.

Most short programs, like those sponsored by the AAPC, and even some longer college programs teach only to the CPC. This is enough to do office coding. Other programs, typically colleges and CareerStep, may focus on the CCA, which is kind of a "learner's permit" that was supposed to help new college grads get jobs but which has not impressed employers very much. It tells them that you could not pass the CCS, but that you're "serious about coding" and want the employer to train you on the job. (You can see why employers might not be interested.) A lot of those schools also teach both types of coding as a kind of generic hodgepodge in the same course at the same time, causing a lot of confusion because inpatient and outpatient coding are very different.

Very few, and possibly only Andrews, teach outpatient coding completely separately from inpatient, as separate courses, and not just by spending 5 minutes the last day explaining what a DRG is. (That is probably the explanation for why Andrews students can pass the CCS.)

Andrews is good and isn't all that much more expensive when you consider that they include qualified instructors, do not force you to sit working through computer screens to learn the material, and instead provide industry-standard, reference-quality textbooks.

Be sure you investigate the requirements for the CPC and CCS. Beginning in January of 2013, the CCS and CCS-P exams will require applicants to have taken a course that includes A&P, pathophysiology, pharmacology, med terms, reimbursement methods, and both intermediate and advanced ICD-9-CM and CPT coding. You may think that you know enough about this and can skip it, but as a coder, I can tell you that you cannot. You need to review this material for the exams anyway. You might decide to forgo this material in order to finish faster and wait the 2 years for the "experience option" for the CCS, but that will not help you get a job.

Something else I would recommend . . . don't dawdle through your course. Don't plan on doing it when you find time. Don't allow yourself the maximum time that the school allows. Set a schedule that is at least double that and stick to it. There is no reason you should be dragging on and on through a coding course for a year, much less two years. If the school says you can do a certain amount in a week, you can probably do twice that. The faster you get through and get a job, the better off you will be.

Right now, ICD-10 is set for implementation on October 1, 2014. You do not need to study it now, because conversion to it is not going to require much re-learning, but just adapting. You can learn it later. But, people who are thinking of learning coding now, TODAY, need to get started and GET IT DONE BEFORE THE CERTIFICATION EXAMS SWITCH TO ICD-10. My guess is that the CCS will switch in early 2014. (They were scheduled to do it in early 2013, but I think they will delay that for a year.) You want to pass the CCS before the switch because it is going to be more difficult afterward, at least for a while. No one will be able to advise you on it because no one will have taken the new version.

You do not need to wait until after ICD-10 is implemented. It might never be implemented. You also want to be employable as older coders retire instead of switching to ICD-10 and when facilities are ramping up their staffs in order to meet the increased needs of ICD-10. That's also another reason you need to learn inpatient coding . . . most of the additional jobs will probably be in hospitals.

Securing a coding job - jan2

[ In Reply To ..]
Will it be any more difficult to obtain a part-time job rather than a full-time job in coding?

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