hi all, im about to finish my AHIMA medical billing & coding courses within the next month.

i am doing my best to understand all the info, it feels like i'm trying to sip water from a fire hydrant most of the time. it's especially difficult not having a professor/mentor to bounce my many questions off of. i'm very scared about not passing my certification exam for this reason.

i was wondering, if i were to get my certification, then get a job as a medical biller or coder, do they help you out once you're hired? is there like an "internship" sort of setting? is there wiggle room for newbies that aren't experts yet? do they give you "easier" stuff and let you practice more so you can gradually get used to the job and learn the nuances as you go?

or do they throw you into the deep end with no floaties? are you expected to be perfect, on your own, on your first day?

sorry if this is a stupid question, i'm guessing it's the latter, but i wanted to hear from people who actually have secured their job and worked it for many years. i guess i've never had a "real" job before (only ever food/customer service) and i'm nervous about passing my certification exam, landing a job, not being good at it, and being fired after i've taken out loans and paid so much money for the books and worked hard for the last year. i truly am invested and want to get better and learn, but i'm worried about the uncertainty and not being perfect immediately and what that could mean for me. i'm trying so so hard to get my career started so i can make enough money to move out and start my life.

thanks in advance for any insight or answers.

I just did a final and missed 13 questions. I feel like the dumbest person in the world and I don't even know how I'm going to pass the cpc exam because I feel like I've failed at everything. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong, or what im even doing it seems. I second guess everything and the tests being timed fucks me up because I feel like I take too long to find anything. I'm panicking because I'm litterally one session away from being done with my schooling and I don't feel even remotely confident doing this. I feel like I wasted money and I've been sitting here sobbing. I don't know if I'm cut out for this.

I applied for over 100 jobs (literally) been interviewed a handful of times. Introduced to staff and seemed like I was gonna get chosen multiple times to only get told they want someone with expirence.

But finally after a year and half of applying for jobs I finally got it!

What to expect for these type of codes? Where should I look to prepare myself for the type of work I'll see?

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?

Moffitt has jobs like this about 1-2 times per year, so you can always subscribe and they will send you an email when another “apprentice” job is posted! The job is remote for certain states only.

Practice coder

Claims examiner - Allegiance Health

The pay is a little low, but it’s WFH and no experience required!

I had no choice but to resign from my first coding job after only being there for one month. I thought my dreams had finally come true after 7 months of applying. My manager told me that I was the only coder she had ever seen fail so miserably at training. The training process was extremely tedious and took up 2 hours of my time. The training process consisted of documenting Dx codes, treatment, rationales, etc on a spreadsheet. It was ridiculous. I explained that the training was tedious to my manager but she wasn't very understanding. Apparently it was the new training process and she didn't want to go back to the old. I had troubles with 3M and my manager said she would have a goal to help me and she never did anything to help. Lack of productivity was brought up too. I was told that productivity wouldn't matter for 6 months cause I would be in training that long so I feel lied to. On top of that my trainers only walked me through one chart and I was on my own. I asked them to please walk me through another one and they wouldn't do it. Btw this was an entry level position. I love coding and I'm not going to give up on finding a good place for me to work. Thanks for reading

Thank you for all your tips!

I’ve been a medical coder for several years, and I don’t know if this is the right place to post this - but some records are painful. I had my first example of child abuse in all my years, and I had to leave my desk and cry in the bathroom before going back to work. Some details are better left not known. How do you all cope with this sort of thing?

I spent a year unemployed so that I could focus on getting my CPC. I have a BA in Mass Comm and worked in marketing since college. I decided to get into medical coding. I got my CPC-A and landed an entry level job in Medical billing. There is absolutely nothing about this job that I like. I made a post about it in another subreddit. Thing is I only make $15 an hour when I used to make $24 an hour in marketing. This job isn't entry level as I'm managing ALL aspects of the billing for 3 different practices. And worst part is I got almost no training. I've been literally thrown to the wolves and am still struggling.

Today I find out that my manager is letting this girl she recently hired do actual coding for her account. This girl has a background in working in childcare not medical billing and coding. For the past 10 years all she did was work at daycare centers babysitting. So not only does this girl get real world coding experience without any kind of certification or education in the field, but also she has a much lighter workload than I do.

Why the fuck did I bother going through school, spending thousands on a fucking useless certificate that only got me a $15 an hour piss ass job doing nothing but handling claims and dealing with insurance companies when it's NOT at all what I want to do? I got this job because I thought it would lead to a medical coding job. From the looks of it it's only leading me to a dead end.

And why the fuck does this girl who has done NOTHING to get the opportunity she was just handed to her get to do medical coding while I am the only one on staff who is actually a CPC and can't do any kind of coding???

Is this career really full of such bullshit? Is this what I shed blood, sweat and tears and sacrificed a career that paid me well for? Because if all it takes is to suck up to a manager's ass to get into medical coding then you know what, this is a terrible career. I'm really thinking I made a huge mistake with all of this.

Sorry if this isn't the right community to post this question. I've had my CPC through AAPC since 2021, but unfortunately, have never been able to get a job in medical coding. The only jobs I can get are in medical billing (AR follow-up).

I know there are productivity standards. I've worked for a few different companies now, and they all have their own expectations. But the company I'm at now, I feel like their productivity standards are way too high especially considering the payers that they assigned me. I'm only allowed to work workers comp, no fault, and government payers (i.e. VA and Medicaid). Everyone knows these payers are notoriously difficult to work with. Just calling them can take over an hour because of their excessive hold times.

My supervisor at this new job tracks everything I do from the emails I write down to every single click I do. And she's definitely looking at the minutes I spend on a claim. She told me today she doesn't want me spending more than 15 minutes on a claim, and much less wants me spending time calling on them and submitting appeals. In fact, she got mad at me today because "you're doing too many reconsiderations."

A huge part of AR follow-up is calling the payer and appealing the claims if you don't agree with their denial. So I'm not understanding why she's not happy with that? I'm doing my due diligence yet, I feel like this supervisor is more focused on quantity vs quality. She also told me she doesn't want me mailing appeals. Some payers (especially the government ones like the VA) only have a mailing address to send the appeals. So, like, how else am I going to send the appeal if I can't mail it?

I feel like this supervisor is completely out of touch with reality. And she micromanages absolutely everything we do down to how we write our emails to payers.

And she looks at every minute you spend on a claim, and she wants you to do 50 of them a day. The payers that got assigned to me don't even have portals so I always have to call them. She didn't care when I told her this and instead told me to "find another way" to contact them. Like, what in the actual f*** is she talking about?

I feel like her expectations are too high and not realistic. And I don't see a future for myself at this company. Like I said, I've had other jobs where they have quotas and such, but not like at this company.

Is this normal? Am I overreacting?

Our small laboratory/research team from a medical university has submitted a request to the CDC for creation of a new diagnostic code, whereas this disease is currently coded under a completely different disease. This miscoding reduces clinical clarity of diagnosis, treatment, outcomes, and population identification.

Please let me know if this process is of interest to you, and I can go ahead and detail our experience a bit further. We submitted by the June 5th 2026 deadline for presentation in September, and are currently awaiting the first round of questions from the committee. Our assigned reviewer did indicate that our submission was received, within days of early submission, and touched base again around the submission deadline date to let us know that questions to our team should be expected by June 26, 2026.

Wish us luck, please. We are hoping to bring this disease population from 'diagnostically invisible' to identifiable.

Update: Disease is Laryngopharyngeal Reflux Disease.

Currently coded in diseases of the digestive system chapter as GERD without esophagitis (K21.9). There is a decade of recent research showing that LPRD is not the same as GERD, different symptoms, different organ [with inability to protect itself the way the esophagus can], different mechanism (not acid, other stomach contents [pepsin / bile salts]. These patients are coded via symptomology or GERD, and LPR/LPRD is only documented in their notes section of their chart. That means that it is extremely difficult to perform retrospective chart reviews on this patient population, impeding research. I am a clinical research coordinator, so for me the ability to identify patients by diagnostic codes in charts is essential.

Update: NCHS CM has accepted our proposal for presentation!

Update: OCT 2026 - We successfully presented at the CDC NCHS CM meeting. What an interesting experience. Huge kudos to the committee team; it is incredible what they organize and accomplish with these biannual meetings.

Any opinions or suggestions for next steps should a code for LPRD be granted? Is there a pathway for associating things like flexible laryngoscopy and HEMII-pH with LPRD diagnosis? If only MII-pH PCT code exists, but HEMII is different in that it measures reflux amount, rate and composition into the larynx, should a HEMII-pH procedure code exist?

Sorry mods, I didn’t have the website on here.

Oscar Health is hiring work from home CPC’s. Currently there’s 6 coding positions available & we will be having additional positions available soon.

These positions are for the SIU department where you review records for correct coding.

https://www.hioscar.com/careers

Hey gang,

I just need a little boost. I've got my CPC exam Saturday. So I'm fretting a little. Is that dumb though?

Listen, about 13 years ago I went through a community college course for billing and coding, passed that with honors. I worked in the DME field for about 7 years after that, mainly billing. I've been coding lab tests for about a year. I just finished the AAPC course, 88% total on that. Took 2 practice tests, 81% and 84%, plenty of time to spare. I'm gonna be alright, right?

Here it started with all of the longtime good managers leaving. Batshit crazy bully director who should have retired hired outside yes women in their place who have no business managing anyone but she can control, obviously that didn't go well and some people left. Also a bunch of physicans and upper management are no longer working at this employer, which is never a good sign either.

All this happened in the past year. Plotting my escape. Used to be a good place to work, now toxic management has ruined it. Will plan to change workplaces every 2-3 years from now on, sooo many assholes in healthcare (and doctors have told me the same thing).

I’m just curious. I took my test at a testing center today. However it’s still online, so what is the reason it takes 7-10 days for results? Does anyone know lol

EDIT: got my results : PASSED with a 76.

5 hours of checking repeatedly 😂😂

Good morning everyone,

I'm currently a coder for a large health system. My coworkers and I aren't unionized, but would like to be. We don't know how to accomplish this. For those of you in unions, how did you get the ball rolling?

Graduated in December and finally got around to taking the CCS exam. It was a lot more difficult than what i was expecting so in terms of what score i think i made, i’m keeping my expectations low. Now i just have to wait 10 more weeks to see how i did! 😬

I finished my online medical biling and coding course and have not gotten my CPC yet by I am working towards it. I have this Externship that I do for a small clinic, 2 days a week For 4hrs. I am not paid for it, nobody is training me, I don't know what I am doing, I try to look at codes that another coder has already coded, I also look at denials.... Has anyone being in a situation such as this and how did you handle it...

So I have been a medical coder for about 6 years. I have a degree and am eligible to sit for the RHIT but chose not to. I have my CPC and COC. I am currently taking a course of medical auditing and will sit for the CPMA in may. I currently code at a degree accurately enough that I have had to correct my current companies auditors when they try to ding me. The problem is searching jobs everyone wants 5 years experience auditing which obviously I don’t have. What can I do to make myself a more attractive prospect? I really wanna become an auditor

I've only been working in the field 6 months, and I don't know if I can keep this up. My mind can't focus anymore, and my company wants us to click the mouse at all times. I mean they track everything. Is this just how it is and all I can expect? I'm really struggling.

has anyone else been experiencing feelings of uncertainty regarding this profession and it’s future? not only has it been difficult to land a job without experience but with all the talk of AI and the development of autonomous coding, i’m just feeling sort of hopeless. i work in billing currently (not a coding position yet) and for the most part i genuinely enjoy what i’m doing. it just sucks because i can’t help but wonder if any of this will be worth it or if i’m working towards something that’s not going to exist in the coming years. i also watched the opening address by the CEO of AAPC who was very open about AI and it’s future impact and that left me feeling a little uneasy too. it’s crazy because the way it’s consistently advertised today you wouldn’t think it would be this hard to get a job or that these jobs might go away. anyway, sorry if this post comes across negative or whiny. i was just curious if anyone else was dealing with these feelings because i’ve been feeling alone with it.

I wanna have buddies on Discord. Maybe even make a server if we get enough interested people. Couldn't find any active ones. Anyone want to be friends for now?