Medical Coding

When you go to school to become a Medical Administrative Assistant, one of the career paths you could take is Medical Coding.  Medical coding is the transformation of narrative descriptions of diseases, injuries, and health-care procedures into numeric or alphanumeric designations or called code numbers. The code numbers are detailed in order to accurately describe the diagnoses, which is what is wrong with the patient and the procedures performed to test or correct these diagnoses. Because medicine is not always an exact science, codes were developed to identify all reasons for seeking health-care.  When you are working in the office as a Medical Coder, the doctor will give you the patients report and you are to then put the correct code number in place of it.

Common uses of medical codes in health-care include:

• Identifying symptoms that must be evaluated and to alert other health-care professionals to life-threatening allergies
• Reporting services performed for reimbursement
• Helping with administrative functions such as staffing, scheduling, and adding or decreasing health-care services
• Comparing facilities and planning for new services in under-served areas