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Coding - How long before coders are no longer needed? - Wondering

Posted: Jul 29, 2012

As we're seeing, MT's are now going to VR and making less money and working longer hours. How long before coders are no longer needed? Don't they have programs already that insert the codes?

Coding is more than "inserting codes." - Coder

[ In Reply To ..]
The worry that coding software will replace coders is a bit unfounded. There is more to coding than blindly snatching up medical words and plopping in a code.

You have undoubtedly seen the hash VR makes of dictation. It just cannot make decisions very well. Coding software will be much the same, with the difference being that nobody will tolerate that degree of inaccuracy. At least not after CMS audits them once.

There will still be a lot of coder involvement in the process. There will still be jobs for coders. Those jobs might not have as much drudge work, though, and they will allow coders to do more higher-level work like physician education.

All jobs change. The days when people did one thing for 30 years are gone. There is no field that is not changing, except maybe in pizzerias and day care centers.

If you choose to go into coding, you can expect to need substantial training. You can exect to need at least 2 certifications to become competitive in he job market. You can expect to have to work at getting a job. And you can expect to have to keep up those certifications and continue educating yourself in order to keep up with the field.

Fortunately, there are several career paths that can begin with coding. With coding, you are positioned to move in several worthwhile directions.

Nobody here is going to get sucked into a "nyah-nyah your coding jobs are going away" argument. We know better.

I have moved through 3 kinds of coding jobs, coding training, compliance, chargemaster development, and consulting in "coding," and from there into EHR prgramming and informatics. Every bit of it required what I learned at Andrews. I used that knowledge to test out of college courses for a HIA program and kept right on going. No software is taking my job away because I am not a code-plopper and never was.

Coding is a good place to start in HIM and informatics.

Well said! - nm

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

YAY! I agree, well said! - current Andrews student

[ In Reply To ..]
MT to coder here, and I have not looked back once after making the decision to become a coder. Still doing MT work while I am in school, but I am loving the coding work, research, and the future job possibilities that are sure to come my way.

Encoder demo for example - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
Here's a demo on how the 3M encoder works. You first have to download it to your computer (but then delete it when you're done). Not an advertisement but shows that the coder makes the decisions, not the "machine!"
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/3M_HIS/Advertising/Codefinder/

encoders vs CAC - medtranusa

[ In Reply To ..]
Encoder is not quite the same thing as the new software for computer assisted coding. Either way, it may help coders but will not have the same effect as SR. Coding is so much more and there are so many other opportunities for accomplished coders.

Scanned documents - cjjmt

[ In Reply To ..]
How does computer assisted coding work with scanned documents? Can a computer "read" a scanned document?

CAC does not work with scanned documents - nm

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

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