There’s always a lot of debate about the going rate for professional coders. What’s the best way to find out what you’re worth? This is my take on salary for certified professionals.
The salary for a certified professional coder can vary by location, employer and experience. While it’s hard to know exactly what someone will earn, it’s safe to say that coding jobs are competitive and pay well.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for all computer programmers was $80,590 in May 2018. The median annual wage for all software developers was $102,280 in May 2018.
Salary for certified professional coder
Short Explanation About Medical Coding:
We know about doctors, nurses, dietitians, pharmacies, laboratory workers, etc. (all are crucial bits of healthcare lattice). But do you know healthcare offers a plethora of other career opportunities?!
Medical coding is also one of its functional segments.
Professional medical coders have no pomp and boisterous lives to show. They sit quietly, interpret specified codes to different medical procedures and ensure that bills and payments are accurate.
Some can even take the privilege of “working from home”…Splendid!
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS Oct 2017), the occupancy rate of medical coding will witness an upsurge of 13 per cent (approx) from 2016 to 2026.
To become a Certified Professional Medical Coder, an individual can opt for any one of the three main specializations currently in use.
- Current Procedural Terminology(CPT).
- ICD-10-CM.
- Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System(HCPCS) level ll.
Please, don’t get stunned readers!…it’s not something Rocket science that I’m mentioning about. But they are just standardized names of courses formulated to give you a standard edge.
What is a Certified professional coder?
Well, medical coding can be traced back in the 17th century (England) but it has rapidly emerged during the past few decades.
Dated back, certified professional coder examination was not much in practice.
American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC) defines medical coding as the alteration of healthcare diagnosis, procedures, medical services, and equipment into universal medical alphanumeric codes.
Who are professional medical coders?… Medical coders are individuals who are accountable for seamless transfer of medical records and more proficient research and analysis to track health trends.
They precisely translate Physician’ reports into useful medical codes thus acceptable.
What is the prefix ‘certified’ mean here? An individual interested in pursuing a medical coding career may work without any obligatory certification.
However, you are well aware that employment chances enhance with a proper certification offered by different organizations.
Certification helps anyone to get a “Professional” tag and he/she is more likely to get recruited, unlike the non-certified coding officers.
Certified professional coders add value to their patients/ customers/ clients.
How to become a certified professional coder? (CPC Coder)
Certified professional coders(CPCs) are expert communicators between medical personnel and medical facilities. But prior to enrolling yourself for the certified professional coder examination, you need to bear in plenty of ‘technical and transferable skills’.
What can be those basic medical coding skills? They are classified for you below:
Unparalleled technical competencies:
- ICD-9
- ICD-10
- HCPCS coding
- CPT coding
- Customer billing
- Inpatient coding
- Outpatient coding
- Health information technology
- Anatomy
- Clinical documentation
Unparalleled transferable competencies:
- Good communicator
- An insight into research
- A gentle handler of computer(expertise in Microsoft office)
- Organized and smooth collaborator
- Time management
- Team management
- Problem-solving
- Decision making
- Focused
Apart from these, a good professional medical coder is ethical…yeah! if you know services are confidential in nature, and every patient they work with should not be defamed.
Becoming a professional coder requires rigorous training and of course certification. The subject is not a piece of cake that anyone can evoke interest in.
What are certified professional coder jobs?
After successfully qualifying the certified professional coder examination, there are several settings in which you as a professional medical coder works. Be it hospitals, nursing homes, mental hospitals, urgent care facilities, doctor’s personal chambers, treatment centres(or anywhere that renders medical services.)
Insurance agencies and some law firms also hire medical coders to handle billing claims from the other side
Salient functionalities of certified professional coders:
- They report coding and abstracting of patient encounters including every trivial medical service they opt for.
- They are record-keepers(medical records.)
- They solve the matter where patients need to be indemnified.
- They search and research medical records and check for any documentation deficiencies.
- They help verify the diagnostic procedures and treatment results.
- They act as a bridge between the patient and the insurance providers (Mediclaim providers.)
- They keep a record of patients over their multiple visits.
- They audit clinical documentation and coded data for reporting schedules.
- Medical coders act as a coding consultant to care providers.
- They even identify discrepancies and every billing issue.
- When required and demanded, expert medical coders handle special projects.
- During internship programmes, it’s their utmost duty to train and supervise interns.
- Abiding by the ethical guidelines, every medical coder is bound to maintain the confidentiality of every patient’s record.
How much is a certified professional coder’s salary?
Like any other profession, the pay scale of certified medical coders varies depending on the place where they work.
However, a proper assessment of the earning potential, a good approach to job interviews and salary expectations and a wise selection and qualification of the certified professional coder examination (according to your skill), can help you get more than your expectation.
According to the latest reports,
- Certified and non-certified medical coders get an average salary of $54,890.
- Non-certified medical coders manage to earn approximately $42,015.
- Certified professionals earn an average of $55,923 per annum. (33% more than those without certification.)
- AAPC accredited candidates earn 8.7% higher average salary than the rest organizations.
Based on Indian sortings, a fresher(less than 1year of experience) can get an average of ₹3,50,000/year(including all tips, bonus, and overtime pay) based on 198 salaries.
Medical coder experts with(4years of experience) earn an average salary of ₹ 6-7 Lacs/year based on profile and process.
Those with (5-9years of experience) can get an amount of ₹ 8- 12 Lacs /year based on their profile and company as well.
And medical coder specialists with (10-19 years of experience) get ₹ 10-15 Lacs per year.
