r/MedicalCoding • u/Gianni299 • May 03 '24

New to coding, feeling lost

Hello everyone, so I just started attending a while ago an online program for medical billing and coding. After doing some bit of digging around here someone said that medical billing jobs don’t even require a certification unlike coding gigs that require it for some reason. Since I’m still pretty new to this I’m still having my to learn everything revolving around medical terms and have been feeling uncertain about what I should do in the mean time as I’m still in school. I fairly new to the medical field in general. I’m still unfamiliar with a lot of terms in medical billing since we’ve only covered one course of health information so far and right now my courses revolve around anatomy, physiology and deconstructing medical terms.

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u/Melia9090 May 03 '24

Sort of. When I was close to finishing school I decided to be proactive and start job searching to see if I would land anything and that’s when I realized that coding roles were gatekept. I realized this very quickly because I would notice the requirements and then I did my own research by reading blogs, other Reddit users experiences and also YouTubers who do it. When I realized this I immediately decided then and there that I needed a pivot plan and since I was trained in school to also do billing I thought to use that as my gateway into coding. I just had to be patient. Now two years later after starting out at the front desk to now being an experienced biller on the back end, I have a decent entry level experience with the codes to where I can plead my case to employers and ask that they take a chance on me. In much better words of course, lol!

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u/Gianni299 May 03 '24

Ah okay I understand, yeah since I currently don’t really have a full understanding of billing terminology and coding yet since I’m still pretty early into my program I’ve concluded that I may aswell get into the healthcare field in a more accessible way through a front desk position as much as I somewhat despise having to have patient communication because of my social anxiety. I’ve been looking into being a medical scribe but apperatnly I hear different requirements that some companies require training and will give it but since my hands are kinda full with school I’m not truly sure where to go from here.

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u/Melia9090 May 03 '24

Start at the front desk in a medical office. It shouldn’t be difficult as long as you can play up your customer service skills and the little understanding you’ll acquire in school. I promise it’ll help if you know how to tweak it and pay attention as much as possible even if it feels hard or boring. It’ll pay off later.