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How would you contrast MT and Coding? - Question for those who have done both

Posted: May 02, 2011

What illustration might you use to contrast the difference between transcription and coding? They both are the medical field, they both involve patient documentation; yet, they are very different jobs.

I am only an MT at the moment, but I have been following coding forums for quite a long time. This subject has come up recently about MTs also performing coding duties. I think it is ridiculous, but I want to hear from those of you who have done both, or even from you who have been an MT and now are studying coding. If you know how to do both, could you easily do them at the same time? Could you code a discharge summary you just transcribed and would that be efficient?

Thanks.

Coding/MT - Anonymous

[ In Reply To ..]
I've been an MT for my entire working career and am now studying coding. Doing both at the same time would not work, IMO, particularly since we all work on production these days, coders are expected to meet a quota as well. In inpatient coding, a person does not code just a discharge summary, they code the entire hospital stay from beginning to end, which requires reading the chart, determining primary and secondary diagnoses, who consulted, surgeries and procedures, etc. If MTs did not receive additional training, there would be too many errors. Perhaps it would work in a small doctor's office but not in a large facility. Still, you would want to keep those tasks separate and perform them at different times of the day. The coders that I know and work with have never done transcription, they are doing what they love, just as many MTs love what they do and are not interested in becoming coders. Doing both is not impossible but not very realistic either.

You wouldn't have time to do either one well - My opinion

[ In Reply To ..]
Both would end up being done ineffectively. The clients might not care that the transcription wasn't done well, as long as it was cheap enough, but when the money stops coming in, they will care very much that expert coders weren't doing the coding or weren't being given the time to do it correctly.

Won't argue with coders on this at all, but the vague - speculation was that most coding

[ In Reply To ..]
coding would lie with coders but that some odd codes for clinical/data mining purposes might be added, or maybe just need to be understood and worked with. Again, just some notion picked up from reading speculative industry articles on potential morphing of editing.

Interesting. - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
I've heard that too and I've been trying to figure out how that could work to anyone's advantage. I'm skeptical. I'll be honest with you. To me it just sounds like an idea someone, probably a consultant type who makes tons of money to think up ideas, made up and got paid lots of money to think it up. Whether it makes any sense or not is another issue entirely. I'm very skeptical. Not saying it can't work or won't work or shouldn't be tried, but I don't see where it will be very practical or meaningful.

After seeing responses from insiders here, have to believe even though - it is mostly a matter of faith. :)

[ In Reply To ..]
x

Businesses try all sorts of things, many of which don't work - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm absolutely sure that people will try all kinds of new ideas regarding coding. My own belief is that the standard is going to stay as it is, with temporary trials of all sorts of ideas, which will fail. The reason they will fail is, they lack common sense.

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