Medical coding is a thriving field full of jobs at doctors offices, hospitals, clinics, and any place medicine happens. The field is expected to grow 6% by the next decade, with 50,000 job opportunities in California at an average starting salary of $66,000 according to labor data from the AAPC and labor market research firm Lightcast.
But what is medical coding, and what type of people typically enjoy and succeed in a medical coding career? These are common questions for working-age adults who have entered Calbright’s Medical Coding pilot program, and adults looking to upskill, reskill, and pivot to new careers.
An official description of medical coding is that it turns individual health care decisions – what doctors and nurses actually do with their patients – into universal codes that make those actions understandable to insurance companies and other health care providers.
Cindy Carney, who leads Calbright’s Medical Coding program and is an adjunct faculty member with Calbright, says medical coding “is like being a detective. You’re looking at the evidence, figuring out what was done to the patient and why, and then explaining it.”
This work is not only about the details – it also can change lives and save families money. Because whether an insurance company pays or denies a claim often comes down to the medical coder’s conclusions.
“I absolutely love the billing,” said Carney, who in addition to teaching at Calbright has worked in medical coding for decades. “I have fought with insurance companies for years to get them to cover people’s medical procedures.”
When a claim was denied, Carney said, a medical coder (in a job called a “professional biller”) can be involved with the appeals, and “I loved writing appeals. They called me ‘The Appeal Queen’ because I could usually get it paid.”
One of the most outrageous cases she had, Carney said, “involved an OBGYN who was out of network delivering a child. The insurance company denied the mother’s claim, and the lady at the insurance company told me ‘she should have planned better for going into labor.’ Unbelievable! I was like: ‘Wait, what? Did you really just say that?’”
Carney wasn’t just outraged – she was a person who could do something about it. Thanks to her hard work, the mother and her family had their medical care paid for.
There are many specialties within medical coding. Some medical coders are experts in cardiovascular health; some medical coders are auditors; some work exclusively with hospitals; some deal with risk management. Some are “practice managers,” who run the billing aspects of medical practices. Some collect medical data for public health initiatives.
In all cases, Carney said, medical coders need to be detail oriented. They should like solving puzzles, be able to work with lots of information, and be thorough with documentation. They should also be comfortable talking on the phone, “because yeah, you still have to talk on the phone. Not texting.”
For someone like that, Carney said, medical coding can be a great career, full of opportunities to advance, and chances to help when no one else can.
