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Sarah Adkins had no healthcare background when she entered medical coding. At the end of 2019, just before the pandemic, she went from stay-at-home mother to single mother, and spent the next stretch of time in survival mode, driving Uber overnight from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. and cleaning houses during the day to provide for her two kids. Her only prior brush with healthcare was a 2019 phlebotomy certificate that led nowhere, since no one would hire her without medical experience.
The push into coding came from someone close to her, a work-from-home cardiology coder with AAPC, who told her that if she could bartend or scan produce codes, she could code medical records. Sarah researched it, jumped in with both feet, and signed up for AAPC's anatomy class and the virtual instructor-led CPC training, a roughly 13-week program she chose over self-paced because it gave her structure and metrics to follow. She scheduled the live classes for after her kids' bedtime and studied on the days they were with their father.
She didn't pass the CPC exam on her first attempt, missing by six questions, but she always knew those six questions were in her, and she passed on her second try in September 2022. A key part of how she got there: a study group from her cohort that stayed connected through a WhatsApp chat, taking quizzes in parallel and troubleshooting concepts together rather than trading answers. That group still checks in on each other today, sharing job openings and career questions.
Sarah began her job search before she was even certified, fine-tuning her resume on Indeed and applying everywhere that fit what she wanted. She interviewed with a third-party billing company and was initially passed over, but when the COO asked to keep her resume, Sarah waited a week to respond so she could send an updated version reflecting her new CPC-A. About six weeks later, the COO reached out with an open position and told her she didn't need to reapply. Sarah cried while putting her kids to bed.
She was hired roughly six weeks after certification, starting in coding and claim entry for an asthma and allergy clinic. Within six months she pivoted to AR, handling appeal letters, corrected claims, and billing. Within a year, her COO asked if she'd become a billing manager, and she recently completed her first supervisor core competency training. Her near-term path points toward learning a new specialty, eventually taking over a clinic, and running her own billing team.
Sarah's advice to coders in training: don't code off common sense, code off what you know, and don't guess. Lean on study groups and concepts over memorization. And don't be afraid to fail, because AAPC is there to help anyone willing to reach out and put in the work. Looking ahead, she hopes to build health equity and patient financial education into her work, guided by an idea that stuck with her: financial stability is health stability.
The push into coding came from someone close to her, a work-from-home cardiology coder with AAPC, who told her that if she could bartend or scan produce codes, she could code medical records. Sarah researched it, jumped in with both feet, and signed up for AAPC's anatomy class and the virtual instructor-led CPC training, a roughly 13-week program she chose over self-paced because it gave her structure and metrics to follow. She scheduled the live classes for after her kids' bedtime and studied on the days they were with their father.
She didn't pass the CPC exam on her first attempt, missing by six questions, but she always knew those six questions were in her, and she passed on her second try in September 2022. A key part of how she got there: a study group from her cohort that stayed connected through a WhatsApp chat, taking quizzes in parallel and troubleshooting concepts together rather than trading answers. That group still checks in on each other today, sharing job openings and career questions.
Sarah began her job search before she was even certified, fine-tuning her resume on Indeed and applying everywhere that fit what she wanted. She interviewed with a third-party billing company and was initially passed over, but when the COO asked to keep her resume, Sarah waited a week to respond so she could send an updated version reflecting her new CPC-A. About six weeks later, the COO reached out with an open position and told her she didn't need to reapply. Sarah cried while putting her kids to bed.
She was hired roughly six weeks after certification, starting in coding and claim entry for an asthma and allergy clinic. Within six months she pivoted to AR, handling appeal letters, corrected claims, and billing. Within a year, her COO asked if she'd become a billing manager, and she recently completed her first supervisor core competency training. Her near-term path points toward learning a new specialty, eventually taking over a clinic, and running her own billing team.
Sarah's advice to coders in training: don't code off common sense, code off what you know, and don't guess. Lean on study groups and concepts over memorization. And don't be afraid to fail, because AAPC is there to help anyone willing to reach out and put in the work. Looking ahead, she hopes to build health equity and patient financial education into her work, guided by an idea that stuck with her: financial stability is health stability.