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

coding at home - MT

Posted: Dec 31, 2011

I have been an MT for the past 17 years; I have loved the job but this profession is really going down the tubes as far as pay and keeping up with the cost of living. I'm interested in coding and specifically Andrews school but I LOVE the flexibility of MT and working from home. What are the work-at-home options for coders? From what I have read here, the CCS is important. Any other helpful info would be appreciated.

Occasionally there are work-at-home coding jobs - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
Usually I think they want you to have some experience before they let you work at home. The amount of experience might be a couple of months or 2-3 years.

MT may also improve over time. Things seem to happen that way. Career fields have their ups and downs. Coding is a great career though, and I agree with everything else you said.

The CCS is absolutely the most important thing for you to get, whether you are going to work on-site or at home, but even more important if working at home is your goal. It's the confidence your employer needs that you're going to be able to do the job plus the fact that you bothered to do what you needed to do to get that very impressive credential. Get the CPC too! Having both is even more impressive, but if you have to choose just one, the CCS is the way to go. It's a no-brainer. By the way, don't bother with the CCA. That one doesn't get you anywhere. It isn't worth the time, effort, and money. Go straight for the CCS.

There are REMOTE coding positions but - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
Remote coding positions are pretty much only possible where a facility has fully electronic records and, as mentioned, they are only available to coders who work well without close supervision and that requires experience or at least expertise.

You will need to accept that working on site may be necessary for up to several years, that any new job may require working on site at least several months, and that any remote job may involve being on site up to a day or two each week, or that permission to work off site may be rescinded at any point. Working remotely will also require greater IT skills than are needed for MT since the software is more complex.

Your eventual ability to work from home may hinge on projecting what HIM managers see as appropriate reasons. Lessening commute times is ok, as is the cost of gasoline, snowstorms, and ecology. Corporatons save on office space and it is more feasible for employees to work overtime from home.

Employee "flexibility" sends the wrong message, though. It sends up warning flags. Calling yourself a "WHAM" is going to be a career-killer in coding. Thse terms convey that you are more interested in working on your terms than on your employer's and that you plan on doing daycare on the side. These are not professional images.

If you do need to work at your convenience or take care of kids or family members while working, you will be unable to do so in coding. Coding is not that casual.

I do not think you want it to be that casual. Do you want a repeat of the MT scenario in which everyone clamored for the flexibility of working at home only to find themselves outsourced to nationals that overstaffed and underpaid? I do not think that it will happen in coding because the fiscal stakes are too high, but be careful of the image and expectations you project in coding.

Coding is a great field, but do not go into it if you need casual, flexible, at-home work so you can work when you feel like it. Coding employers need your full attention, not what is not being taken up by children, TV, and dogs.

Your ability to complete the Andrews program in a year or less while employed full-time will be a good test of your ability to code remotely. If you cannot set a schedule and gt that done without distraction and delays, you are not going to be a good prospect for remote coding.

thanks! - MT

[ In Reply To ..]
Thanks for the replies. Linda Andrews also wrote to me and gave me some helpful input. I did not mean at all to imply I wish for "casual" employment. My job supports my family of 6 in a very tough economy so casual is definitely not acceptable, and your points are well taken. :-) I appreciate the advice.

Something else to think about - Coder

[ In Reply To ..]
HIPAA changed the thinking on at-home work in healthcare. MTs might not have seen this much since their home jobs existed prior to that and were usually not directly under the healthcare entity, but coders do deal with it.

Employers now have to provide absolute assurance that protected information is safeguarded. They take care of the computer end of it for the most part, but will apply strict requirements to the home environment. They will usually require a dedicated room for an office, used for nothing else, and to which no other family members have access--ever. You may be required to provide internet and a separate phone line, special liability insurance, furniture that meets ergonomic standards from a catalog the employer chooses, office lighting, and your home may need to meet safety standards. You may be required to have a security and safety inspection by the employer and may be subject to unannounced inspections during your tour of duty, which is generally going to be fixed instead of flexible.

I know someone who had all of that, and also had to rewire the room electricity, install industrial carpet or other business flooring, document use of environmentally safe paint, install a special high grade shredder (not that she could print to begin with), make her husband and housekeeper sign documents agreeing not to enter the room, and ... put bars on the window (the expensive kind so she could escape in the event of a fire), and replace the door and frame with an industrial grade door and 2 deadbolts. She had to agree to keep the door locked if she even went to get a drink.

The pay made this totally worth it, so she was very happy.

And, of course, coding software allows employers to see exactly what you are doing and when, and salaried employees typically have high productivity requirements.

Wow! - Another Coder

[ In Reply To ..]
Wow! I'm glad they paid well. Not all employers require these things. I know and work with many remote (home) coders and have never heard of requirements like the ones mentioned.

The facility I work for only requires that I have my own internet line and a private place to work. I have a separate office but several of our coders don't. When the computers are off it doesn't matter if something else is going on in the room. The computers the employers send home are protected with multiple passwords.

In the coding world there are always productivity requirements at home or in an office. The work que associated with the coding software lets anyone with access see what charts you have done but this is true for remote or office coders.

Something to think about - Anonymous

[ In Reply To ..]
Many of the things you mention with regard to coding at home have applied for the home transcriptionists where I work - the dedicated work area, locking the PC when not in use, and not allowing family members access. Our manager makes home visits at the time of our annual review and actually takes pictures of our set up and makes sure everything is ergonomically correct. I think that some home MTs did not take HIPAA seriously, but where I work it's a very big deal. The other thing we had to do was show proof of homeowners/renters insurance in the event that our computer became damaged for some reason (fire, leaky roof, whatever). Security issues are not unique to coding, MTs need to be taking care as well.

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