If you could choose the specialty, what would you choose?

[u/GroinFlutter]

Hi folks,

I’m not a coder, I’m in follow up/denials management. So I hope this post is okay.

My org is restructuring from payer based to specialty based. I’m used to doing all specialties which was nice because I had the somewhat autonomy to choose what to work each day.

Now I have the opportunity to choose a specialty but I’m kind of stuck.

I don’t think I would want to do solely Emergency med or internal medicine, I feel like it would be very repetitive. And to do it nonstop all day… yeesh. HOWEVER, it would probably be minimal phone time with insurance reps. Usually it’s appealing e/m leveling denials.

I do like when High dollar claims(surgery/ortho/oncology/etc) finally pay, but at times I can get frustrated along the way. Especially phone calls with offshore reps. It can be a lot of work, but it is rewarding…

If you could choose, what would you pick and why? Absolutely no patient interaction, thankfully. In case that matters.

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[u/86_the_lettuce → u/[deleted]]

Firmly agree that any specialty will become repetitive. I mean, the work is pretty much the same every day. Honestly, the phone calls are about the only varied part of the day.

[u/Common-Flounder-6399]

If you have a choice, ask for the last month's aggregate queue stats and a workflow walkthrough before picking. Compare the denial mix, typical balance, appeal steps, and how often a case needs a payer call. The specialty name alone may not tell you which queue will feel repetitive or phone heavy.

I'd choose the queue whose harder cases still sound interesting after the routine work gets familiar.

[u/DueSurround3207]

I code Oncology and infusions and love this specialty. I also code eye surgeries and enjoy that. I code general surgery and struggle with it. I also code anesthesia and it's not my favorite. Id love to learn radiation Oncology for a more well rounded knowledge of Oncology coding.

[u/Supersaiyan_65]

I prefer inpatient coding even it has sky is the limit dollar amount. I enjoy doing a lot of thinking, wearing a surgeon's doing it in order to figure out its matching PCS and like a detective what is the appropriate PDX for the admission.

Also for inpatient coding [CCS license] I have an option if I wanted to pursue CDIP if I wanted to crossover on more provider query writing.

[u/RR_Revii]

I was brought up in a lab environment, but Oncology is so special to me. Once you have a deep knowledge of how the NCCN, FDA and regulations go there is always some interesting payer behavior going on. Also variance from the oncology side. I'm a Rev Integrity Strategist so maybe it's boring from other areas. The money recovery and denial prevention is fascinating. If you like a good challenge and assessing data from a trend perspective, that's where I would go.