sbtomberlin
Guest
I was just certified as a CPC-A last September with no previous medical experience...I just took a class. I volunteered in medical records at a local hospital for a week before I was officially hired on. Since then I have been coding ER charts for about 3 months. I just have some general question about how ERs are coded in other hospitals because it seems that we do it very differently here. I want to move and work in a bigger city within the next year so I'm just trying to learn as much as I can and prepare myself.
At the hospital I work for we use Meditech for all of our coding. I don't handle any of the billing. I just go through each day's charts and code all of the diagnoses (including the underlying symptoms...I know some places don't do this but they made it a policy here due to rejections). I only use certain procedure codes, like for splints, casts, fracture reductions, sutures, catheters, etc. I don't use any E/M codes...which, looking through here, it seems like everyone else does.
Keep in mind that I live in a very rural area and other than the program we use which looks up the codes for us, it seems like we're 10-15 years behind everyone else. We still use paper charts and have to physically file them ourselves. What else would I need to learn to prepare myself to work in ER coding at a bigger hospital? How different is what I do compared to where you work? Thanks!
At the hospital I work for we use Meditech for all of our coding. I don't handle any of the billing. I just go through each day's charts and code all of the diagnoses (including the underlying symptoms...I know some places don't do this but they made it a policy here due to rejections). I only use certain procedure codes, like for splints, casts, fracture reductions, sutures, catheters, etc. I don't use any E/M codes...which, looking through here, it seems like everyone else does.
Keep in mind that I live in a very rural area and other than the program we use which looks up the codes for us, it seems like we're 10-15 years behind everyone else. We still use paper charts and have to physically file them ourselves. What else would I need to learn to prepare myself to work in ER coding at a bigger hospital? How different is what I do compared to where you work? Thanks!