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Tag Archives: Efficient Medical Coding

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Essential Qualities Expected in an Efficient Medical Coding Service

Medical coding service involves dedicated and precise attention, with coders’ skills being crucial for medical practices and insurance companies. The overall smooth functioning of health care facilities and effortless service by insurance carriers depend on effective and perfect medical coding.

Fundamentals of Medical Coding

Transforming various elements of health care diagnoses, processes, equipment, and medical services into universally standardized alphanumeric medical codes is Medical Coding. The data is collected from medical documentation such as transcripts of physician’s notes, lab and radiology reports, and so on. Abstracting relevant data, assigning appropriate codes to each, and preparing insurance claim are the basic tasks involved.

Medical Coders’ Regular Responsibilities

Medical practices providing service to patients need to maintain huge documentation. When an individual receives health care from any provider, every process such as treatment procedure and medication must be reported in the required form. Details of what was wrong with the patient and all services provided have to be documented. This enables health insurance providers to assess their financial obligation. Medical coders facilitate easy understanding by translating various medical procedures into commonly adopted standardized code.

Significant Duties performed by Medical Coding Service Providers

Medical conditions are numerous, illnesses are countless. This requires medical coders to perform extensive research of voluminous codes. They are needed to understand the fundamental medical terminology to be able to perform their routine tasks. Regular responsibilities include collecting relevant data from varied medical charts, carrying out research on the codes, and enter the information in the appropriate forms in a computer.

The chief characteristics needed of medical coding service

The following are the major attributes that make a medical coder eligible for the responsible task of medical coding:

  • Coding professional need to be academically inclined: Relevant qualification, critical thinking capability, and efficiency to conduct research are the basic qualities required of a medical coder
  • Passion toward Medical Science: Although not directly involved with health care of patients, medical coding professionals need to participate in non-clinical processes – coding is not patient contact-based, but sound knowledge of anatomy and physiology, apart from others, is a must
  • Independent Working ability: Medical coding demands working on independent terms – there may not be direct supervision or monitoring all the time-coders must be able to not only take responsibility of their work and complete tasks on time but also meet accuracy and productivity standards
  • Continuous learning & Updating: Medical industry being always on the move, coders need to constantly keep themselves updated and online with the advancing medical science – medical coders must be aware of each and every change in procedures and policies

To be able to offer reliable and efficient medical coding service, the coding professionals must have sound knowledge of medical terminology and basic idea about medical science. Governmental and payer regulations must be adhered to, properly.

Being familiar with different codes such as CPT, HCPCS, and ICD-10 and their respective coding systems is essential. It is crucial to know the guidelines of coding systems. Moreover, knowledge about which codes will be accepted by different insurance companies is necessary.