Which second certification (COC, CIC, or CPB)?

kerentp

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I am a CPC and am trying to decide which second certification would be most beneficial for me. A COC, CIC, or CPB.
I am working but would like to work from home eventually, even part time as a supplement. Which one of those certifications could help me with this goal?




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I would like to know the same advise. Have completed my testing for the coc and missed it by 2 points so will I taking it again shortly I feel that I was a little miss directed. Having said that it appears i did learn a lot about the in and out‘s of outpatient billing including
 
From my experience, the difference in certifications does not make necessarily make a difference whether or not you can work from home. To me, it matters what work you want to do from home.
For example, if a hospital/facility permits their coders to work remotely, it would not matter whether you are in inpatient coder (CIC) or an outpatient coder (COC). If they allow remote work, they allow remote work.
CPB is a billing certification, which is very different than coding. There are thousand of exceptions and this is very simplified, but a coder generally extracts the codes from the medical records. A biller generally follows up on payment from insurances and patients. Coders typically earn more than billers.
CPC (which you already have) is the physician end of coding.
Having additional certifications may allow you to apply for more types of positions, but it matters more what type of work you want to do.
 
I had hard time checking out and didn't get email either. I wonder if the free offer is actually from aapc or not.
The offer is/was definitely from AAPC. I had to go to the AAPC's Facebook page to find out more information.
Apparently all members would have received an email with a link to one of the free courses last week.

I never received the email with the link so I'm hoping they open the offer back up in the near future. It's a great idea for those of us who want another Certification!
 
I am a CPC and am trying to decide which second certification would be most beneficial for me. A COC, CIC, or CPB.
I am working but would like to work from home eventually, even part time as a supplement. Which one of those certifications could help me with this goal?




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Dear Karen,

In my opinion, you should go ahead with your CPB certification. You are already a certified coder and getting additional coding certificates won't help you much. I see your future plan is to work from home, so in that regard CPB would definitely help. Remember, coding work is extremely limited if you compare it to billing. Billing involves a lot of processes like eligibility verification, auths/referrals, charge posting, payment posting, Denial Management/AR followup, etc. Billing is too vast and gives you more opportunities. From my personal experience, I see coding is required only in big settings, like hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, etc. Small setups like single physicians or even group of physicians, they don't require coding as such. They have checkouts or charge tickets where physicians themselves circle CPTs and write ICDs and this process eliminates the need for coders. In the present scenario, office managers look for people who can do both coding and billing. They don't want to hire coders separately. I hope you have gotten my point.

At last, go for your CPB certification which would eventually help you land a remote job. I don't agree with the statement that coders are paid well than billers. Both are paid almost equally but billers do stand a better chance to grab jobs because of billing arena being too vast.

Karen, if you require any further information or advice, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you,
Rajinder Singh Dhammi, CPC, CPB
e-mail: rajinder_dhammi@yahoo.com
 
The offer is/was definitely from AAPC. I had to go to the AAPC's Facebook page to find out more information.
Apparently all members would have received an email with a link to one of the free courses last week.

I never received the email with the link so I'm hoping they open the offer back up in the near future. It's a great idea for those of us who want another Certification!
I didn't get an email either and only have 1 certification and in the US. I hope they open it back up again soon also.
 
I just saw this about the free course. It looks like they broke up when they sent out the emails, but it sounded like it was only for a short time. I looked through my old emails (June)and see that I never received this free email. Does anyone know how we could go about asking why we didn't receive this email or when they may start up this free course again? It's now July so I don't know if I can get this or not at this point.
 
Hi, I really don't know how it works.You can get more information about it by contacting them. You can access their contact information through their website.
 
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