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

Future job outlook - everydayearthling

Posted: Feb 09, 2010

I'm currently an MT, wanting to change careers. In your opinion, what are the chances of coding going the way of MT with outsourcing to foreign countries and/or technology cutting back the number or coders needed?

Any opinions would be appreciated. I'm thinking about starting classes.

See message. :) - Linda Andrews

[ In Reply To ..]
Nobody knows. If anyone tells you they know what's going to happen to any industry these days, they've got to be fooling themselves.

Throughout my career 'the experts' have told us exactly what was going to happen. They have been wrong each and every time. I'll tell you my thought process and let you come up with your own conclusions, weighing all that you've heard and evaluating it.

I've paid careful attention to new technology and changes in our industry since I opened the school in 1989-90. I used to make myself exhausted believing every new thing that came out of professional medical journals. Every month a new journal article comes out, often an article about how wonderful a certain technology is, and if you look into who wrote the article, it's usually written by someone who sells or represents that technology. The next month they come out with some NEW but equally earthshaking prediction that they represent as a fact.

A few years ago, maybe 10, a friend of mine who owned a court reporting school was told that court reporting was obsolete. At that time the powers that be were saying that videotaping was the new thing. So he closed that part of his school. It didn't happen like the experts predicted because nobody wanted to sit there and watch a video. They wanted to thumb through the actual manuscript and find the page they wanted.

So, what's going to happen? I don't think outsourcing will be a problem. Technology may change the way we do some things, but for some reason it hasn't been able to provide insight that comes from a truly well-prepared coder. That's just my opinion. Time will tell. Each person will have to take the information and weigh it using their own personal experience and decide what they think the future holds for any occupation.

On the bright side, there will always be a need for those who understand the various parts of the medical record and how they go together. The job title and description may vary, but those important parts will always be relevant. Does that make sense?

unfortunately it's - already happening...nm

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

Could you be more specific? :) - Linda Andrews

[ In Reply To ..]
Would you mind giving more details?

a coder friend of mine - told me

[ In Reply To ..]
a large hospital system in FL was doing this already....then I read some coder forums to find the same complaints coming from people all over the U.S....more on billing than coding, but nevertheless, it has begun.

Could you see if you can get more information? - Linda Andrews

[ In Reply To ..]
Years ago some of the hospitals tried using encoders in place of coders, but it cost them huge amounts of money. Now they use them, but only to help the coders.

At any rate, would you see if you can get more information about what your coder friend is seeing? I'm not really so interested in the billing part of it, but just the coding if you would be kind enough to ask her or him. It would be an interesting discussion here. Wish we had more coders on here too, but that's another thing altogether. :)

offshoring - Jm

[ In Reply To ..]
I just canâ��t see it happening with coding. I think coding is too complex and the legal issues will deter anyone from shipping it out of the U.S. With Medicare RACs (recovery audit contractors) coming out looking for fraud, overpayment, documentation being what it is, coders needing to query, and needing to have more and more clinical knowledge, I believe it is in hospitals and healthcare centers best interest to have their own workers, know what they know, and know that they are keeping up with the ongoing changes and education. If there are mistakes, the facility is accountable. This is just my opinion of course.

offshoring - cj

[ In Reply To ..]
As little as a year ago, I would have totally agreed with you. now I am not so sure. I have seen a couple of places who are using offshore coding services. I, too, am skeptical of the quality of offshore coding, but I never thought MT would be allowed to be so horribly degraded, either. my bigger fear, however, is the use of computer assisted coding, which is becoming more sophisticated every day. I believe that in the future the coders will become more like editors than coders. In other words, the Ncoder will assign the codes based on what is entered by the provider in terms of documentation, and the role of the coder will be to verify the coding as opposed to actually performing the coding. That being said, the cost of such a system is astronomical and I think it will be quite some time before it is practical for this be commonplace. For now I think coding is relatively safe but, like everything, will in the future face some changes as technology evolves

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