Medical Transcription

Medical coding is a process that doctors and many other medical professionals use in order to transfer the symptoms and diagnoses that they provide to their patients into a very simple code. These codes are then used in order to obtain payments from medical insurance companies when claims are presented to them.

Plus, each code is then used by the US government in order to produce statistical reports and in relation to research carried out by medical professionals.

There are several different languages used for medical coding including ICD-9 (diagnostic code) and CPT-4 (procedure code). But since the introduction and use by many medical professionals of medical billing software, spotting incompatible codes has become much easier. However, all the codes that are used today are governed by the HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) of 1996 which has been set up to standardize all aspects in respect to health insurance.

Certainly for those people who like working with computers and also have very analytical minds, then a career in medical coding could be very rewarding. Today there is a very high demand for skilled medical coders and billers, as there are so many healthcare services around today, they all need someone to help them to ensure that they get paid for the services they provide to their patients.

A person can start a career in medical coding with just their high school diploma and then can decide to progress in their chosen career by taking further courses through either attending night school or doing them online. Certainly those medical coders who have attained the required qualifications can look at earning anything up to $40,000 a year. However, it is preferable that you have a good knowledge with regard to human biology and mathematics, as these can be extremely useful to advance your career further in this profession.

The current languages used for the production of medical coding as mentioned previously relating to the diagnoses: the doctor provides the procedures that they carried out in order to treat the patient. The ICD-9, which is still widely used today even though they have developed ICD-10, was developed back in the late part of the 19th Century in order to help classify various diseases. Today this coding is usually updated every 10 to 20 years and has been adopted by the World Health Organization under the title of ICD Codes (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems). Although the ICD-9 version was released in 1979 it was found not to be the most ideal of the ICD codes and was then modified and became known as ICD9-CM. The CM stands for Clinical Modification.

Whilst the medical coding CPT-4 is published by the American Medical Association and used to describe in a uniform way all the procedures that doctors will carry out, each code is made up of 5 digits and to date there are over 8,000 codes being used by the medical profession. However, each year these codes will be reviewed and a number of new ones will be added, whilst others will be deleted. So it is vital that all medical coders keep up to date with all these changes and have an updated list close at hand. Because of the complexity in relation to the codes that are used today, it is important that those wishing to become a medical coder undertake the proper training.

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