What are Medical Billing and Coding
Certificate Programs Like?

Video Transcript

Host Question:
What is a medical billing and coding certificate program? How long does that take to do and what jobs does that open up to you?

Medical Biller and Coder Answer:
The first thing to know is with the coding certifications, there are different coding certifications. Some of them don’t even require you to buy coding books, and they are just organizations that provide certification exams. So that you can prove proficiency in your skill. They aren’t something to be ignored. They are very useful, but they are really just there to prove to everyone that you have proficiency in billing and coding certification companies. Then there are certifications that are associated with professional societies like the American Academy of Professional coders or the American Health Information Management Association. They are just to get you certified and prove that you’ve taken the certification and pass. But they are whole professional societies with networking and resources and job boards and friends that so they are kind of two levels of certification.

Medical Biller and Coder Answer:
If you just already have a job lined up or you already have a goal in mind with your certification, taking a certification exam from the FHA or American Medical Careers Association, those or American Medical Billing Association, they’re fine to get just certified. Any potential employer can check that you have passed the certification exam. You are proficient in your skills. If you want to network and be involved in et cetera and so on. Then going for certification with those other organizations and being a member of a professional society is also good.

Medical Biller and Coder Answer:
Let’s start with certificate programs through a college because there are different kinds of certification programs. So a certificate through a college is usually something you can do online or in-person and work at your own pace, and usually you can complete it within a year or less.


Medical Biller and Coder Answer:
This comes in your research when you’re looking at school. Like I said, there’s a number of schools on there that will have an online certification program or a medical billing and coding certification program. And they will teach you, I’m hoping that they would teach you enough how to use a coding book. My two year program went through community college accredited because it’s a community college, but it taught me not only how to use those books, but how to take the National exams. And that’s really important because you want to be able to sit for a national exam and be accredited. Especially nowadays, there are people who’ve been in the field for 30, 40 years that aren’t certified, but they’ve been at that job for 30, 40 years. They know that job better than a kid coming out of school. Trust me, any kid coming out of school should sit at their feet and learn because you will be doing that for the rest of your life. Coding changes every year, there’s updates every year, so you have to stay on top of it. And that’s another thing with your certifications and national certifications. You pay dues. You have to have continuing education units turned in. I know it’s about every two years. It’s 36 of them. Sometimes those things can be quite expensive. You can also get very creative and there’s a lot of inexpensive CEs available out there as well. Research it’s all in the research.

Medical Biller and Coder Answer:
Oh the specific were out. It definitely took me about two years just to begin on the actual program. A lot of clearance through the agency for coding, professional certificate for professional coders or professional biller say a humor that could take up to two years just to be now with certification. But it definitely is a route out that you can take, but it also is a plethora of different jobs you can get from that as well. Because being a CPC apprentice, like I said, you start off on the lower end of the spectrum, but you could definitely work that off like you do is different programs that you can go through where you work out that and you could go for making $17 this year for making over $25 – $30 next year only because of your experience in that particular program. And if you are professional coder, that program is well, it takes about two years, which like I say, you can do the same science even with the billing portion, you can work with different providers in clinical research your way where they’re trying to see how you can be billed, what can be billed, the reimbursement rate. And so you can set your own hours if you work for a provider’s office. They probably arranging about $99 or higher, to be honest, you have this expectation. So, you know, for that particular part. In our certificates for both billing and coding combined together. I would say that takes maybe like three months, depending on who you go through.

Medical Biller and Coder Answer:
The main accreditation or certificate company that I would use is the ABC and they have their own course and you can take tests locally through them anywhere across America. So they have the billing and coding. Then their next step is the CBC. That one’s going to take a little longer, I would say like six months or so, but you don’t have to have a college background for those certificate programs. The one with the college background would be through a different accrediting organization. There would be a HEMA, and your first credential that you can get with them is the HRT and then the CCA. And those too do require that you have an associate’s degree through an accredited college, someone that is accredited through AHIMA to be teaching these courses. So you get your authority, your safety is through that. You can also take those task locally. They will actually have you go into a testing site through AHIMA.