Medical Billing and Coding - Marion Technical College

Medical Billing and Coding from Marion Technical College is a Campus Certificate Health Administration degree that prepares you for a Healthcare career. Each time a patient is seen in health care setting a medical record is completed. This record includes the patients' symptoms, radiographic and lab results, diagnoses, immunizations, medications prescribed and surgeries. Medical Billing and Coding Specialists are the office personnel who take this information and assign classified codes to each procedure and diagnosis. The codes are then used to bill the insurance provider or the patient properly. Other uses for the codes may be in tracing specific cancer diagnoses for treatment, survival and recovery rates, and geographic locations. This occupation is one of the few in health care occupations in which there is no direct patient contact. Knowledge of medical terminology, principles of health information record systems, office procedures, indexes and classification systems, as well as, basic math are necessary to competently do this job. Computer proficiency, good communication skills, being detailed-oriented and accurate are also essentials for this career. Medical Billing and Coding Specialists usually work 40 hours a week in a variety of settings. Certification can be achieved through American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) or American Academy of Professional Codes (AAPC). With additional education a Medical Billing and Coding Specialist can go on to become a Registered Health Information Technologist (RHIT). Medical Sciences Mission Statement: To provide allied health students with a personal and professional learning centered education. Career Opportunities: Since 2002, more than 147,000 individuals were employed as Medical Coding Specialists and other health information professionals nationwide. Approximately 37 percent of the people in this field work in a hospital setting; more opportunities are developing in niche markets [such as insurance companies] as the need for superior data collection and management grows. This career category is projecting more than a 18 percent increase in job opportunities through 2016. Primary reasons for this increase are increased testing procedures and greater scrutiny from third-party payers and regulatory agencies. View more details on Marion Technical College . Ask your questions and apply online for this program or find other related Health Administration courses.