Strong Demand for Medical Coders Expected for Years

(Newswire.net — June 5, 2018) Springville, Utah — In April 2018, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported a near historic low national unemployment rate of just 3.9%. In addition to unemployment rates, the BLS also reported projected job growth by industry, and the number one industry for job growth in the United States for the next decaded is healthcare. That’s right. The $3+ trillion U.S. healthcare industry, and within the healthcare industry, the demand for medical coders is expected to grow by 13% through 2026.

As the U.S. populations continues to advance in age, the U.S. healthcare industry continues to grow. With a growing population of older citizens, long-term and chronic medical conditions and other age-related health issues are increasing demand for healthcare services. And all of those doctor visits and procedures need to be coded by medical coders for reimbursement from health insurance companies. The estimated 76 million “baby boomers” are fueling much of this growth in demand.

• Low unemployment leads to more open jobs
• Demand expected to rise as population ages
• As healthcare becomes more data-driven the medical coder becomes more critical

To put things in perspective, with the U.S. economy performing very strongly (at least in terms of employment and outlook), the overall job growth for the nation projected by BLS is 6% through 2026. This means the projected growth for medical coders is more than twice the national average. With such a strong job outlook for the medical coding industry, it seems there is no time like the present to enter this fast-growing and important job market.

Medical Coders & Coding Specialists

The job of a Medical Coder or a Coding Specialist is a specialization of a more general Health Information Technician. According to the BLS, Medical coders typically do the following:

• Review patient information for preexisting conditions (such as diabetes) so patient data can be coded properly.
• Assign appropriate diagnoses and procedure codes for patient care, population health statistics, and billing purposes.
• Work as a liaison between the healthcare providers and billing offices.

As the demand for qualified medical coders continues to go unfulfilled, more flexible employment opportunities are becoming available. Medical coders are needed to work in hospitals, physicians’ offices, surgical centers, nursing care facilities, and other medical-related facilities. The work location is also rapidly expanding to encompass remote workers, many of whom have the flexibility of working from their own homes via secure Internet connections to the medical facility’s Health Information Systems.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to become a medical coder, the following qualities and skills are very important:

• Analytical Skills: Medical coders must understand medical records and medical diagnoses and then decide how best to accurately code what is documented.
• Detail Oriented: Medical coders must be accurate when coding medical records.
• Integrity: Medical coders work with sensitive patent data which is required, by law, to be kept confidential.  Discretion, an ethical sense of privacy and respect are necessary when working with this type of information in order to protect patient confidentiality.
• Interpersonal Skills: Medical coders must be able to communicate effectively with healthcare providers to discuss discrepancies in the medical documentation and to solicit clarification and accuracy in the medical records.
• Technical Skills: The knowledge and skills to effectively utilize coding and classification software to properly code medical records are highly technical and require specialized training and experience.

CareerWize Bridges the Gap

CareerWize provides skills-based and job-focused training for future medical coders in an effort to fill the needs of the growing healthcare industry, and employment opportunities for graduates. CareerWize offers highly-interactive online training programs that provide the instructional background and hand-on coding practicum necessary for graduates to find success as medical coders in either a physician / out-patient environment or in a hospital-based / in-patient environment.

The CareerWize founders boast the combined experience of having hired over 10,000 medical coders, and having trained 100,000 students in medical transcription and medical coding. Together, with a modern cloud-based platform, CareerWize is poised to revolutionize training in the healthcare industry.