The medical coder certificate prepares you to become a valuable member of a health information service team. Coding professionals use a classification system to assign code numbers and letters to each symptom, diagnosis, disease, procedure, and operation that appears in a patient's chart. These codes are used for insurance reimbursement, research, health planning analysis, and to make clinical decisions. A high degree of accuracy and a working knowledge of medical terminology, anatomy, and physiology are important skills for these professionals.
Career opportunities include hospital inpatient/outpatient coding specialist, reimbursement specialist, coding abstracting or insurance claim analyst, managed-care coding specialist, procedural coding specialist, and physician’s office or clinical coding specialist.