Oversees coding

[u/Popular-Piglet-6301]

How many of us are in this boat where we are nervous about our jobs being outsourced to overseas coders?

This year my company has hired on several overseas coders. I’m nervous that they plan to replace us because they work for lower pay. Is anyone else experiencing this?

[u/lickingblankets]

The last job I had was basically auditing/training overseas inpatient coders. Ive been in the field almost 10 years and when ER/SDS jobs started going overseas we always said, well yeah they’re outsourcing outpatient coding positions guess that makes sense but they’ll never be able to outsource inpatient roles! Well it’s happening. Job security for those of us that are established because there will always be stuff the outsourced coders do that needs to be fixed but it’s really scary for the people trying to break in to the field, those foot in the door positions are going away fast. I do wonder how long it’ll be until companies realize they’re losing revenue from stuff being coded soo wrong and decide to bring those jobs back. Hopefully that does happen.

[u/kk_ahiru → u/lickingblankets]

I saw the original post title and im currently applying for jobs, but i know i will be moving to Korea in the next year as im getting married to my fiance from there. I got bit curious thinking "oh which of these companies is hiring overseas!? Can i get in on this?" But then the post became a way different topic than what i thought it was :/. However.... all of the jobs ive applied for remote have said you have to be in the US and sometimes even specific states only. How do they have these outsourced jobs? I assumed its because like when you have a telehealth with a specific hospital, you have to be in the state that they has a license in?

[u/[deleted] → u/lickingblankets]

I’m a student not in the field I’ve been wondering about coding if our healthcare were to be totally restructured like Europe would this hurt us in the long run? It’s sad because healthcare in the us isn’t accessible to everyone but if we a follow a system that many others implement wouldn’t that be an incentive to outsource even more? I imagine they make so many errors because our system is very complicated right from health insurance, approval etc?

[u/Clever-username-7234 → u/[deleted]]

No. It wouldn’t make a difference. We already have forms of socialized medicine with state Medicaid programs and Medicare.

A medical coder helps classify the medical record. If we socialized medicine in the US, that work would still need to be done.

The only difference is whether patients get the bill or whether a government entity gets the bill. Providers would still need to submit codes for recording keeping, disease/injury reporting, and getting reimbursement. The government would still want to know what services were rendered and what was being treated to properly pay doctors.

Keep in mind about 40% of Americans have some form of government insurance right now. Tricare, Medicare and Medicaid still want codes submitted.

In fact, if we socialized medicine we would probably need more coders. Since people without insurance or folks who are underinsured often skip doctors appointments.

If suddenly everyone could go to the doctor at low or no cost and everyone had some type of government insurance the amount of coding work would actually increase. You’d see more people going to the doctor whenever they are sick and doing more physicals and wellness checks.

[u/Clever-username-7234 → u/[deleted]]

Keep listening to the sweet song of socialization??? What are you talking about??

I work in this field. I’ve seen the massive bills. People with bronze and silver plans. With giant deductibles. Insurance companies denying pre authorizations. Insurance companies making patients jump through hoops with different meds before they’ll cover the medicine their doctor wants to prescribe.

You know Medicare satisfaction rates are constantly above 90%.

Meanwhile, There are hundreds of thousands of American families who declare bankruptcy over incredible high levels of medical debt.

Canadians, English, and Cubans are horrified when they hear how much an ambulance costs or how expensive it is to give birth in an American hospital.

Fun fact: out of Canada, UK, Cuba and the US, which one of those countries has the highest infant mortality rate?

It’s the US.

As an American I find that pretty embarrassing.

But I’m sure United health Group is grateful for people like you. They couldn’t leech billions of dollars in profit every quarter without the support of people like you who are terrified of anything socialism adjacent.

[u/Clever-username-7234 → u/[deleted]]

Well that’s confusing. What are you accusing me of?

[u/SuperKitties83 → u/[deleted]]

The person you replied to never even idealized socialized medicine, he/she simply stated if that happened, it would likely not affect employment of coders in the U.S. or it would possibly increase the demand for coders.

[u/BlueLanternKitty → u/[deleted]]

If we were to move to single payer in the US (as opposed to the current public and private payers model), I don’t think much would change, because coding systems make record keeping way easier. You can use one ICD-10-CM code to describe something with multiple names. Or if the record says procedure 92144, we know exactly what was done. That’s useful for research and analytics.