Beware of 4-Week Medical Billing and Coding Courses

Medical coding and billing are two healthcare careers that do not require much, if any, patient-facing work. In addition, there are no legal requirements for certification. Yet most employers want their medical coders and billers to be minimally certified by an accrediting entity. That leads us to the main topic of this post: 4-week medical billing and coding courses.

 

Are they out there? Yes. Should you take one? That depends on what you want to accomplish. A 4-week course is not likely to be comprehensive. And even if you could find one that was, could you realistically learn everything you need to know to pass a certification exam in such a short amount of time?

 

The medical coding and billing careers could almost be considered parallel careers. They both involve doing some of the administrative work necessary before healthcare providers can get paid. Medical coders work more on the clinician side while medical billers work more on the financial side.

 

A medical coder translates the notes taken during a medical visit into codes. The codes represent a standardized billing language that both healthcare providers and insurance companies understand. Every medical diagnosis, procedure, device, etc. can be described with one or more codes. A medical coder's job is to create an accurate description by assigning appropriate codes.

 

A medical biller takes the codes generated by the coder and uses them to prepare and submit insurance claims. You could almost say that medical billers prepare invoices using coded information. Though they rarely work directly with clinician notes, billers still need to be familiar with medical and procedural terminology.

The training for both careers is similar. Workers in both fields learn all about the various code sets including CPT and ICD-10. They learn about medical codes applicable to Medicare and Medicaid. The list goes on and on. Yet their training diverges in some of the finer points of their respective careers.

 

It is possible to find a 4-week training course that introduces a candidate to the basics of each career. In fact, a recent Forbes piece even mentioned a self-paced but comprehensive medical billing certification course that could be completed in as little as 3-5 weeks. But the article is clear to point out that most people take longer.

 

An introductory course introduces the basics of either medical coding or billing. It is not likely to dig too deeply into coding. That is the first thing to consider. Second, a more comprehensive course that gets into coding details is going to be more information intense. Even being self-paced, it is likely to take most students more than a month to complete.

 

As previously mentioned, formal training and certification are not required by law. However, employers tend to prefer certifications as they demonstrate that a job candidate has put in the time and effort to learn. Not only that, but employers don't want to spend time training on general principles that could be learned through a certification course.

 

Completing a certification course allows one to get a foot in the door. Once employed, additional courses will add certifications to a worker's resume. More certifications equal greater earning potential and more opportunities to move up the employment ladder.

 

If you have been thinking about a medical coding or billing career, think seriously about taking a certification course or two. Go ahead and look into 4-week courses if you like, just go in with the understanding that they probably won't prepare you for most certification exams. You will need a bit more training for that.