Wiki CPC Help!

[nialak29]

I earned my medical billing and coding certificate in December 2019. A few months after, I took my CPC exam. In february 2021, I finished practicode of 600 medical cases and removed my apprenticeship. With this in mind, I worked as a medical biller at a kidney specialists office for 9 months. During my time there, I was not allowed to use my coding skills at all and there was no advancement involved for the future. The doctors did the coding. I stay in contact with my coding teacher for a long time. I received a better job opportunity and left the billing job. I just started working at Pathway Health Partners. My position title is clinical documentation improvement specialist HCC risk coder. The company is an ACO and is contracted by medicare. It may not be directly what I want to do but it lets me atleast deal with coding. This type of coding is new and popular lately from what I know. I am familiar with the fee for fee service coding where you code for physicians or hospitals directly after services. Risk adjustment seems a bit different as it deals with assigning risk scores. My question is can this still help me to reach a medical coding job that is not risk adjustment. I don’t have hands on work experience in coding at all. I will have risk adjustment as I work here but for outpatient or inpatient coding. My goal is to be a medical coder. I am just struggling to reach there little by little. I need some advice.

 

[hperry10]

nialak29 - I think this is a really good start for you. It's great that you have some billing experience and were able to land a job in risk coding. You are further ahead than a lot of people that post on this forum. Risk adjustment is different as you are focused on diagnosis codes and not CPT. My advice to you is to learn as much as possible in your current role and get a year or two of experience. You have been patient and you are getting closer to your goal - you are doing everything right in my opinion. Take advantage of this opportunity, you are setting yourself up for great things.

Also - you may find that your goals change, that is why I encourage you to embrace this opportunity and not worry that it may not be your goal right now. The goals I set for myself when I became a coder 6 years ago are very different from my goals today.