Medical Billing and Coding - Welcome to the world of medical billing and coding!

Welcome to the Medical Billing and Coding World blog!

My name is Susan Haywood and here is my story. I spent twenty years in the software industry and liked it alot, except the layoffs. And this current recession just pushed me over the edge, so to speak. I have two children to raise and my parents are getting near the age where I'm going to have to help them out also. My kids are seven and eight years old so I've got several more years of care and cost for them. After doing some research I decided to go into medical billing and coding.

Medical billing and coding careers are appealing because they offer high demand and that means I don't have to worry much about being laid off. For someone with a family, like me, that's important. I also like that a medical billing and coding career offers me flexibility. I can do temp work, I can get a regular job or I can become an independent contractor. Medical coders can do any and or all of these. For me, the big attraction is that coding can be a route to a "lifer" job in the medical field. A lifer job is one that offers a defined benefit pension and union protections, my definition anyway.

Medical billing and coding courses are a great way to get into the industry. You can take courses at lots of different places. I recommend Western Career College and Heald College. These two have well established and credible programs. The great thing about these courses is that they are largely hands on and are not that academic. This was important for me because I had been out of school for literally decades. I was worried that I would not be able to do the course work. It turned out that these programs are designed for people who have been out of school for a long time, so it was easy.

Medical billing and coding jobs are plentiful. According to the Department of Labor, medical billing and coding jobs will increase at a rate of 16% over the next three years. This is well ahead of average and represents a good amount of projected demand. This means that there should be plenty of jobs for the forseable future.

Medical billing and coding online is an up and coming area. Every day there are more and more medical billing and coding online classes and programs being offered. I expect this trend to continue because Internet technology keeps getting better and better and because medical billing and coding lends itself to the Internet as a course delivery vehicle. It's a good bet that the cost of these online courses will go down in the future as more and more of them come on the market.

Medical billing and coding salary data is plentiful at places like salary.com. The data for my area looked a little low so I checked with a friend who works as a coder and determined that they do make good money and that what I was looking at earlier was strictly entry-level salary data and it was a few years old.

Medical billing and coding schools are plentiful and easy to find. Just do an Internet search using google.com or bing.com. You can find schools offering both online and offline programs. You can find medical billing and coding schools that are accredited and that are not accredited. Don't worry, there are lots of schools to choose from.

Medical billing and coding training is something you mostly do via hands on. The better medical billing and coding training programs and schools require that you put in 180 hours of hands on volunteer work. This is the only way for the training to sink in and become practical for the student.

Medical billing and coding work may seem boring to some. However, it's not nearly as boring as being unemployed. I find the work fulfilling and I think you will also, as long as you adopt a professional attitude and strive to be the best medical billing and coding professional you can be.

These are a few of the topics we are going to cover here at Medical Billing and Coding World. Please let me know your suggestions to make this blog more helpful to you.

Sincerely,

Susan