Working for Health Care Providers
An essential part of the modern health care corps, medical coders are employed across the country, from quiet towns situated off the beaten path to the heart of busy metropolitan areas. Few occupations can boast the diversity of environmental options provided by the medical coding field. Across the country, large and small health-related companies require coders, resulting in a wide choice of employer size for the medical billing and coding job seeker.
The nation’s 5,000 hospitals employ a large number of coders. These facilities include:
- community hospitals
- federal government hospitals
- psychiatric hospitals
- prison facilities
- long-term care hospitals
Other medical coders work at physicians’ offices. As of 2008, more than 660,000 doctors practiced in the United States, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Medical coders find employment in physician office settings ranging from solo practices to single specialty and multiple specialty groups. Practice types include:
- internal medicine
- family medicine
- pediatrics
- obstetrics and gynecology
- psychiatric care
- chiropractic care, and many others
The “2011 Annual Medical Billing and Statistics Survey” conducted by the Medical Association of Billing found that a high percentage of provider offices do their own coding. This is especially true in the nation’s southeast sector where 75 percent of respondents said they do in-house coding.
The north central region has the lowest percentage of provider offices that do their own coding (45%). While these trends alone do not reflect regional job numbers for medical coders, they demonstrate the opportunities that exist across the country for medical coders who enjoy working in the physician office setting.
Opportunities within Professional Service Organizations
Medical coding typically requires little, if any, patient interaction. This allows health care providers to outsource coding tasks to a professional medical billing service. Medical coders work within the nation’s thousands of medical billing service companies. They find ample choice in the size of organizations in which to work. Some billing services employ thousands, while many others employ fewer than 50 workers. Insurance firms also employ medical coders.
Whether a medical coder is employed by an insurance company, a private billing service, or a healthcare provider, the coder typically works in a comfortable office environment.
The Medical Coder as a Private Contractor
Some consider the ideal working environment to be a home office. Many individuals are drawn to the medical coding occupation for the entrepreneurial opportunities it provides. Where zoning laws allow, this is a viable home-based career. Medical coders employed as independent contractors enjoy the freedom to balance their personal and professional lives working at home by structuring their own time. The home office can be as simple or sophisticated as the medical coder desires.
Setting up a home office requires that the coder invest in the tools of the trade, including a good computer system, printer, fax, specialty software, insurance forms, reference materials and a clearinghouse for claims transmission, as well as a room set aside for work only (to avoid distraction). Wireless technology allows the independent medical coder to turn almost any location into a temporary work space. Home-based medical coders may require a place to meet clients. They often solve this issue by taking advantage of short-term office rental space.
The diversity of environments offers the professional medical coder many pathways to a rewarding career in the health care industry.
About our expert. Jan Jacobs has worked in medical offices since the early 1980's. Ms. Jacobs has worked for M.D.'s and D.O.'s in primary care and specialty care. She is employed as a senior medical biller and has been at her current job for nearly 10 years, where she uses three different billing systems.
