Can I Work From Home As A Medical Coder?
Medical coding is a great career.
It’s well paid, employment in this field is very secure and it’s easy to get a job without any previous experience.
But can you work from home as a medical coding professional?
Well, yes, you can but you’ll need our guide to help you get there.
What Is Medical Coding?
Medical coding is all about health information management. Medical coders take a physician’s report and then they describe the reports in a universal medical alphanumeric code that allows insurers and medical billing to deliver accurate assessments of costs.
A medical coder will:
- Ensure that medical billing and coding are correctly used to describe the services received by patients
- Make certain that the medical coding is accurately applied
- Validated the grammatical consistency of the documentation they work on as a medical coder
- Medical coders often provide training in medical coding to doctors and other medical staff
- Revisit previous coding jobs to identify errors or missing information
- And more…
Why Should I Want To Work In Medical Billing And Coding?
There are plenty of good reasons to join the ranks of medical coders and they include:
- Medical coding from home is easy – if you want remote medical coding positions there are dozens of them and this will give you a solid work-life balance and flexibility in where and how you work.
- What you do matters – medical coding is all about ensuring patients get the care they need paid for and reimbursed. It’s a good thing.
- You gain transferable skills – health information management and medical coding have plenty of transferable skills. A certified coding specialist is always highly sought after in the healthcare industry.
- You can work in plenty of places – certified coding specialists can do their coding from home, but they can also get coding jobs in hospitals, doctor’s offices, and nursing homes or with the American Health Information Management Association.
How To Become A Medical Coder
It’s not too hard for remote medical coders to become a certified professional coder.
- Ensure you have the basics – that’s a high school diploma (or the equivalent) and the ability to pass a background check (criminal records make it very hard to find work as a certified professional coder)
- Get trained – the fastest route in is to take a certificate program tailored to medical coding. However, an associate’s degree or bachelor’s degree in a healthcare-related role can help you get ahead in this profession. You will need to be certified before you can work with medical records or health records and it establishes that you’re ready to join the professional coders in your work-from-home career.
- Practice – training is fine, but mastering the skills you need takes practice. You will want to focus on medical terminology and soft skills that help you work remotely such as research, communication, computer skills, etc.
If you need work while you’re training – you might want to consider these no-experience jobs for college students or a virtual assistant job.
How Much Do Medical Coders Earn
According to Indeed.com – home medical coders earn around $45,000 a year on average. This can vary, of course, if your work-from-home job is an entry-level position, your company will probably pay less than this but an experienced pro can make a lot more too.
Some Companies That Hire Inexperienced Medical Coders
Maxim Healthcare Services
This company offers services to healthcare clients that include coding, documentation management, and audit control. They have full-time jobs, part-time jobs, and remote positions for medical coders and they don’t require previous experience for many of their roles.
Check it out here.
nThrive
This is an information management company in the healthcare sector and in addition to coders, they hire registrars, transcriptionists (learn how to get into transcription here), and more.
Check it out here.
United Health Group
This is one of the largest companies in the healthcare field and they have plenty of remote job opportunities. They’re one of the best employers that you could work for when you complete your certification program.
Check it out here.
Aviacode
A job at Aviacode is going to make it very easy to pursue a long-term career in medical coding. They have a ton of opportunities for coders all of the time.
Check it out here.
Change Healthcare
This is an IT company that specializes in healthcare management, they don’t have quite as many opportunities as some of the other companies on this list but they have enough.
Check it out here.
Medical coding is ideal for a work-at-home position, it comes with a decent salary and remote jobs are easy to find. The companies you are likely to work for are reputable and involved in patient care, which makes them solid employers.
