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Coding or billing? Can I work remotely?

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happysoul:
Obviously my question implied that I would  start working remotely after having all certifications and 2 years of experience.  I am more interested in knowing if there are actual medical coders doing this remotely and having a location independent lifestyle.  When I talked about Thailand and the beach, I was just trying to be humorous.  My question has nothing to do with outsourcing to India but with the possibility of empowering American medical coders to work from some other place.  As you probably know, there is a wonderful world out there and not everyone wants to continue living in the old boring USA, some of us actually want to have a life.  Thank you.

PMRNC:
I like the good old boring USA  ;D ;D  Sure we need some remodeling in Washington, but we'll get there :)

There is a big difference when someone says they want to WORK at home Work remotely. The first thing you need to do is decide how you want that. A physician who "employs" a remote "employee" GAINS nothing and in fact pays more (due to tax purposes, etc all equipment supplied has to come from them, they don't get to write off your services, etc)  BUT hiring an outside SERVICE is another ball game all together. The physician  will see a big savings.  Trying to find "employment" from a physician to work from home is about a one in 5000 chance, most doctors are not willing to take such a leap to hire someone to work from home, (especially with no experience) it's costly and it's risky. Hiring an outside billing/coding company would indeed be the more profitable and efficient way.   So with all that said you must first define how you want to do this. There are pro's and con's to starting a business too.   Just my two cents.

Billergirlnyc:

--- Quote from: happysoul on March 15, 2013, 08:29:09 AM ---Obviously my question implied that I would  start working remotely after having all certifications and 2 years of experience.  I am more interested in knowing if there are actual medical coders doing this remotely and having a location independent lifestyle.  When I talked about Thailand and the beach, I was just trying to be humorous.  My question has nothing to do with outsourcing to India but with the possibility of empowering American medical coders to work from some other place.  As you probably know, there is a wonderful world out there and not everyone wants to continue living in the old boring USA, some of us actually want to have a life.  Thank you.

--- End quote ---

Actually, to me, it wasn't so obvious, thus why I addressed every aspect of your question. Perhaps if you had just asked "can a coder work remotely or from home" then some of the comments you received would've been omitted. But, let me state, I didn't think you were in another country, and I did get the humor, thus "haha" in my comment.  :)

What I've personally seen in the industry for coders who do work for someone else is they start out in an office setting and once there is trust established (as in they can do their jobs w/o issues) then they allow them to slowly work remotely - these are those who work as employees. The only coders I've seen working remotely outright as an employee are those who have tons of experience. I hire coders and they must past a test and have at least 5 years of verifiable coding experience in various modalities, and are on a weekly quota where they MUST code a certain amount of charts for me (my biz) a week, but again that's my requirement. I use video conferencing with them, they're live streamed into our meetings, etc. My office is set-up to work with my staff remotely if need be. I also have billers and coders who work in the office but I allow them to work from home 2x a week, but they're required to be in my office at least 3 days (like today, Friday, I'm still working from home and will stop by the office later). For the remote workers nothing really changes besides they're not in my actual office. Being able to work remotely will often depend on how the office you work for is set-up and if they allow it. But I don't see the ability to work remotely changing for experienced coders. There are companies who only offer coding service who hire coders to work remotely. I was actually contacted by a company who got my namer from someone asking me if I wanted a job with their company. They worked on medical research and needed coders to work remotely. So, yeah, once you get the experience, the ability to work remotely is there. It just all depends on the set-up of your employer. I think as the technology gets better you'll see this a lot more - IMO.

As far as taking a coding course and ICD-10: I believe AHIMA now teaches from the ICD-10 books (a very basic book), but it still uses the ICD-9 books for 2013 while teaching the course. I believe AAPC still teaches from ICD-9 2013 books and you'll have to take a separate course on ICD-10, check both their sites to confirm. But, I assure you, as a coder, knowing how to read ICD-9 will absolutely HELP you learn how to convert to ICD-10, because while ICD-10 has many differences from ICD-9, the new classification system retains the traditional format and many of the same characteristics and conventions, so it shouldn't be too difficult for an experienced coder or biller to transition into, and it will only help a coder in training to learn both, but even AHIMA doesn't seem to want to commit to fully teaching ICD-10 in their prep courses just yet, they seem to only touch the surface, but again confirm this. EVERYONE will have to train on ICD-10, but to say don't learn the ICD-9 book is bad advice - IMO. You could very well finish training (prep courses for coders) and get certification/licensed way before ICD-10 is implemented (October 1, 2014), and you'll STILL need to know ICD-9 until ICD-10 takes over, and I believe the tests are still using ICD-9 (again this is you're looking to get certification). There are so many online courses and boot camps that this shouldn't be a deterrence for you, if you decide to take a coding course. And while I don't think the implementation of ICD-10 will get pushed back, I'm always thinking about "what if it does". Get trained in both, because the certification organizations still test on ICD-9 from my understanding.

RichardP:
I did open the paragraph with this statement:


--- Quote from: RichardP on March 15, 2013, 04:39:45 AM ---Both coders and billers need to understand ICD-9 codes in order to bill properly.  ...
--- End quote ---

But I do see how the rest of the paragraph could be interpreted to mean don't learn ICD-9.  I did not intend to say that.  Billergirlnyc expanded on what I was getting at.  Thanks for that.  The ICD-10 link I provided contains sub-links that will teach ICD-9 as you learn ICD-10.  If hs learns ICD-9 by way of learning ICD-10, he will be well positioned to sell his skills in helping organizations transition to ICD-10 when it happens.  That is what I was getting at in the previous post

liambrooks:
LSWs and medical coders can both work remotely, especially in telehealth or billing services. With the right training and remote jobs in these fields are possible and growing.
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