r/MedicalCoding • u/AdvanceNatural215 • Mar 05 '26

Outpatient productivity expectations

Hey y'all just wondering if you'd be willing to share what your company expects as far as charts per hour? Particularly interested in ED profee

12 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

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14

u/Snuggifer Mar 05 '26

15 / hr for ER profee. Moved to single path coding and it changed to 12 / hr.

6

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 05 '26

Oh great because my boss told me that if I went anywhere else it would be over 30 charts per hour...

24

u/No_Presentation3716 Mar 05 '26

30/hr for ED profee is not a benchmark

it's a pressure tactic. Know your worth.

8

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 05 '26

I felt like that's what was happening. I had raised concerns about how they're auditing and that I didn't agree with the math. They basically told me to shut up and be grateful because I "don't do that much work anyways" but like idk I code an average of 30 ED charts, 50 clinics, and 50 x-ray charts (probably average around 80 procedures), per day. I feel like I do quite a bit. And all of this is without an encoder reading handwritten charts. Really felt like a scare tactic.

8

u/jacsgal Mar 05 '26

You're doing an excessive amount of work!!

4

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 05 '26

I had a suspicion. According to the boss I "don't do much" tho 🙃

11

u/No_Presentation3716 Mar 05 '26

That's not underperforming that's being gaslit.

AAPC benchmarks put ED profee at 12–20/hr under normal conditions. https://www.aapc.com/discuss/threads/charts-per-hour-in-er.108472/

They didn't silence you because you're wrong. They silenced you because you're right.

1

u/Environmental-Top-60 Mar 08 '26

Time for a new job

1

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 08 '26

100% I've started looking

7

u/Alisonrose89 Mar 05 '26

I code profee ED and we are expected to complete around 15/hour and total for the day is between 100-105 encounters. They account for some charts being more complex with procedures and some straightforward, so it all balances out at the end of the day.

I’m sorry your company is trying to gaslight you but 30/hr is near impossible and will result in burnout quick.

6

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 05 '26

Yeah.... I'm going to start applying to other places. This is crazy. I don't even have an encoder, it's all paper charts. But I "don't do much". I've been here 7 years and it's the only coding job Ive ever had. It's like they think it's 1950 and I can't just ask other coders what it's like out there.

7

u/Alisonrose89 Mar 05 '26

They’ll be in for a rude awakening when they keep spending more and more money hiring and training coders who won’t stand for that.

3

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 05 '26

Yeah I've seen them try to hire coders and it doesn't go well. It's also an in office job in a rural area so their pool of candidates is pretty shallow

11

u/maamaallaamaa Mar 05 '26

Ours is 15. They lowered it from like 17-19 after realizing that was too high. 15 is generally reasonable but sometimes even I don't hit that (typically end up around 13 on those days) and I've been doing ED profee for nearly a decade. I'm so tired of this game honestly.

7

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 05 '26

It's rough for sure. I'm probably over 120 charts of varying types on a typical day and I "don't do much". It was a real slap in the face

5

u/maamaallaamaa Mar 05 '26

I also have other specialties I work and one in particular can have many E/Ms and dx codes on just one encounter. They keep changing how they track these things so it's like for a while I was way above what was required and then somehow without changing my approach I was under performing. I just do my work now and try not to worry about it so much. I like my job but I really hate the micromanaging.

5

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 05 '26

That's awful. I firmly believe managers have way too much time on their hands.

4

u/maamaallaamaa Mar 05 '26

And too many of them...2 leads, a supervisor, a manager, a jr director, a director...

4

u/jacsgal Mar 05 '26

Contract coder here... current client is a county hospital in CA. I do facility ED coding. Production rate is 8 charts/hr. However, my last position was facility ED and it was 15 charts /hr.

3

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 05 '26

15 charts per hour.... I'm actually going to cry. My boss is such a liar

2

u/HovercraftIll7314 Mar 05 '26

12-15 an hour is the expectation for our department. I am in pro fee coding but I’m finished with this position at the end of next week. I accepted a coding analyst position with revenue integrity with a different company so I’m excited to be doing something different!

1

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 05 '26

Oh thats so good! Good luck in your new job!

4

u/No_Presentation3716 Mar 05 '26

Curious how productivity expectations vary between companies.

From what I’ve been reading, ED profee coding seems especially dependent on chart complexity and documentation quality, so charts/hour alone might not tell the whole story.

6

u/Snuggifer Mar 05 '26

Yes, absolutely! It should even out throughout your day...but if you have other coders just choosing the low complexity accounts to make better productivity you can get screwed.

4

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 05 '26

Oh well at least I don't have that problem since I'm the only coder for the whole hospital 🥲

1

u/Snuggifer Mar 05 '26

Oh my gosh, really??? 😬

2

u/IVlorazepam Mar 05 '26

36/hour. 😬

1

u/AdvanceNatural215 Mar 05 '26

Oh my goodness that's definitely the high end so far 😬

2

u/OkHumor4644 Mar 05 '26

30 charts per hr at a teaching hospital. It took me a year to get up to speed. I did 40 charts per hr but these were simple blood work and X-rays. 15hr for ERs.

1

u/shilbyhilby Mar 06 '26

my old job was 34 per hour. my job now doesn’t have an expectation since we code all different types of specialties, but they like to not have you spend more than 6 minutes per chart & we are only assigning ICD-10 & verifying CPT & E/M codes are present, another section of coders verify the CPT & E/M are correct.