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Medical Coding
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What is Medical Coding?
Medical coding, is pretty simple really. Just imagine that you could assign a number to every disease, disorder, ailment, medical complaint, or condition of the human being, and another number to every procedure used to diagnose and treat those diseases, disorders or ailments, and you'd have "CODING". That, essentially, is what medical coding is all about. The translation of tedious diagnostic and treatment information, into standardized numerical codes.
What purpose does this codification serve? Good question, we thought you'd never ask! Well, one of the primary benefits of using codes to describe what might otherwise be pages upon pages of tedious descriptions, is that it allows for the production of simple insurance claim forms that contain all of the information about a patient's condition and treatment on just a couple of lines of a form. The codes also provide for a standardization of basic diagnostic and treatment information, such that a removing a splinter from your finger is the described using the same codes, regardless of how much detail the doctor might have included in the details of the procedure itself.
Through the use of medical coding, computerized processing of insurance claims is made possible, saving millions of man-hours which would otherwise be required (on the part of the insurance carrier) to read through and translate the descriptive information from the doctor, prior to the processing of your insurance benefits.
So, how does the process really work? Well, it all starts when you walk into your doctors office. You have a complaint, or perhaps you are simply there for a routine checkup. The doctor sits down with you, conducts an interview with you, and conducts an examination, and then makes a diagnosis and/or provides a plan of treatment. After you leave the office, the doctor typically makes a chart note, which may be dictated or hand written, from which a medical coder then translates the gist of the "encounter" into code, which is usually used for insurance claims processing, although coding may still occur, even in the absence of insurance. Where insurance billing is require however, the coder's work is a prerequisite of the billing process. Only after the coding has been applied, can the doctor's billing staff then proceed with the insurance or other billing processes.
The coding of the information really begins with the reading and interpretation of the doctor's notes. Now, if the doctor dictated the notes of the encounter, the coder may have to wait for the transcribed report to come back from the medical transcriptionist, or the coder may also be a trained
medical transcriptionist, in which case (having received cross-training) this person transcribes the dictated notes AND applies the ICD/CPT codes to the medical record. In either case, once the coder has the report, the information is interpreted, and two primary resources are used to translate that information into industry standardized code format. Those resources are: 1) The CPT - Current Procedural Technology and 2) The ICD - International Classification of Diseases.
FYI If you already have a medical office background, and some experience in either the medical coding or billing arena, Meditec offers a very powerful coding software program that might be just what you're looking for. It's called the AlphaII Coding Software System, and it provides comprehensive ICD & CPT coding assistance, which both beginning and experienced coders find indispensable. The AlphaII System can be ordered right along with the course, or you may choose to come back and add it later. Click here for more details and our on-line order form.
Meditec.com has been in the Medical Coding business since 1969, and was one of the very first companies in the United States to begin offering it's medical coding training courses via the Internet. Students can take medical coding training online, from the comfort of their own homes, and receive the same (if not better) training than they might find in a traditional trade school.
Unlike becoming a doctor or lawyer, becoming a medical coder does not require an advanced college degree, nor does it require an enormous investment of capital to get started in practice. Meditec.com has more than 35 years of experience in the medical transcription, coding, and billing business -- we know how to train you, and we know how to help you achieve your goals.
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