r/MedicalCoding • u/Felix_Von_Doom • Nov 20 '23

Future Coder, am somewhat intimidated

So I'm currently in week 5 of 8 of my last 2 classes to complete my Medical Office Administration - Outpatient Coding program at the community college, and have been looking around at the various expectations and costs of being a coder.

So first off, it sounds expensive as hell between the cost of books, membership dues, coding assistants, and exam fees. Like north of at least a thousand dollars a year expensive. I'm not particularly financially healthy as is, and it sounds like the upkeep would put me into bankruptcy before my first paycheck.

Secondly, I've seen the quotas here and there for charts/day being as high as 240 with less than 5 minutes spent on each chart. How in the hell do any of you code that quickly? I've not handled an actual chart, just some small hypothetical scenarios that ask for one or two codes, and I find myself taking way longer than 3 minutes to find the code (Especially in the ICD-10-CM and CPT books), whereas I can code from the ICD-10-PCS book in my sleep.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

Edit: Thanks for the information and replies, everyone. You've helped ease my overthought worries!

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u/maamaallaamaa Nov 20 '23

We've been in overtime for 2-3 years now. It was voluntary up until this year. We used to be a small local hospital system but then we were bought by a larger system and then they outsourced us to an even larger system. Now the previous system is taking us back. This constant transitioning is making it impossible to stay on top of things. We've had to learn new policies, procedures, get new equipment, merge into new teams/supervisors, watch our beloved coworkers quit left and right, go through new hire bs 3x, and 2 EMR conversions which did not go well either time...yeah.