A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Coding :: Do you feel the compensation is good? - DD

Posted: Jan 08, 2013

I have had my own medical transcription business for almost 30 years. Recently, my largest client informed me they are going to start using a template that docs will fill out when they see patients. I am losing a lot of income and really need to replace it. My friend told me that coding is a good thing to get into now. I don't want to spend the time and/or money learning that if the pay is not good and the jobs aren't plentiful. I have tons of medical transcription experience in every specialty imaginable, have trained transcriptionists and have done QA on transcriptionists who work for me. I have had courses in anatomy and physiology and have a good knowledge of disease processes. If you are a coder, would you recommend this field? Do you feel the compensation is good? Can anyone recommend a credible training course. I know some places require a 2-year degree. Any info would be appreciated!

DD - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
There is a lot of information about your questions on this board and in the archives. You can also check out the AAPC and AHIMA websites for some information. They have salary surveys that you can take a look at, too. I am a coding student, not a coder yet, so maybe some coders will respond.

Yes, I would recommend this field - Actual coder

[ In Reply To ..]
Yes, I would recommend it. Yes, I feel the compensation is good -- you can see the salary surveys yourself. There is also room for advancement and room to move laterally into other health information managememt jobs.

Some hospitals may require a 2-year degree, but outpatient areas usually do not. In any event, the 2-year degree is in health information technology, not coding per se.

If you are looking at a 2-year community college program, be sure to notice that they can take 3 or more years to complete, even if you go full-time. With that kind of time expenditure and tuition, you would do better to do the totally online bachelor's degree in health information administration at Western Governors University, which can be completed as fast as you can motivate yourself to do it. I think their average time to completion is 2.5 years for a 4-year degree.

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