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How A Medical Coder Save An Office Money

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When coders read that saving an office money is a critical asset to their career, most coders ask how they can accomplish this. Put simply, a medical coder can save an office money by doing his or her job well.

Why is it that simple? Well, in theory a medical coder’s job is to accurately describe a patient’s diagnosis, inpatient or outpatient status (charge and billing differ between these two statuses), and treatment. If a medical coder mischaracterizes a file and causes a patient to be billed inappropriately, this can result in denied insurance or medicare payments, his or her office being audited and corrected, and perhaps even followed by a lawsuit!

Health insurance is no casual matter, as a patient’s well-being can be on the line depending on how grave his or her situation is. Therefore, improperly billing a patient’s insurance company is not likely to go unnoticed, so being accurate is critical for both the interest of avoiding lawsuit and keeping patients’ trust.

Admittedly, telling a medical coder to simply be better at his or her job isn’t necessarily the most helpful advice. Here are two specific ways to improve your accuracy on the job and help save your office money:
  • Understand the information dynamic at your place of work. From whom do you get the files you work with. If you have questions about a specific patient, do you know which members of the involved medical team to contact? If not, opening direct lines of communication will help you avoid guessing and get you the right answers quickly.
  • Be willing to continue your education. While you may have the certification you needed to get the job, enrolling in coursework for medical coding or general physiology can help you stay current in the field and eliminate out-dated information you might still work from.
Most importantly, coders are encouraged to keep close record of their work if they seek a higher salary, as employers are more than willing to better compensate workers who have saved them money through rigorous file work.


For further reading see this post on making a difference in an office as a coder.

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