OT - need a new career
What about a nutritionist? I've heard that Gerontological Nutrition is gaining demand. A friend of mine is a nutritionist and she does a lot of data anaylsis for a large corporation. You'd probably still have to work with others, though.
~Jen
RNY, 8/1/2011
HW: 348 SW: 306 CW:-fighting regain GW: 140
He who endures, conquers. ~Persius
size 8, life is great
If I got paid for farting around on the interwebz, I'd be rich by now.
Jrzyboriqua
on 8/22/11 1:34 am - East Windsor, NJ
on 8/22/11 1:34 am - East Windsor, NJ
HI!
My friend just became a Surgical Tech. It took her about a year. The only thing you have to worry about is finding a place that is accredited and has great placement. They will ususally have you extern for a couple of hours...think she has to do 150.
Billing/Coding should also be about a year! Good Luck in your search!
Oh! I'm loving all the crazy pics you guys posted...made me LOL at my desk.
Carry on lol
My friend just became a Surgical Tech. It took her about a year. The only thing you have to worry about is finding a place that is accredited and has great placement. They will ususally have you extern for a couple of hours...think she has to do 150.
Billing/Coding should also be about a year! Good Luck in your search!
Oh! I'm loving all the crazy pics you guys posted...made me LOL at my desk.
Carry on lol
As mentioned already...
Laboratory! It's a healthcare profession for introverts.
Medical Technologist requires a Bachelor's Degree
Medical Laboratory Technician requires an Associate's Degree
Or, histotechnologist, or cytotechnologist... depending on how large a hospital you live near.
Pay won't get ya rich, but you won't be living in the poor-house, either.
FleurDeLis
on 8/22/11 2:31 pm
on 8/22/11 2:31 pm
If you are going to spend time getting an education, make it a good one.
If you want to be an epidemiologist count on needing a masters or doctorate. Public Health usually requires a masters at least. It depends on what level you want to practice. A lot of ac****ing firms have consulting practices that hire health professionals.
I'm an RHIA (among other things). Health Information Management still needs a lot of people contact, but a number of jobs do concentrate on data rather than sick people. The higher up you get, the more people skills you need. The happiest people I know went into consulting. It combines data and people.
I dealt only with physicians but I have my masters. Sometimes I would spend 2-3 days one on one with a physician to go over billing issues as they saw patients throughout the day. I did seminars for groups of physicians.
A lot of the time the billing clerks present had no idea what I was talking about when I did these physician sessions because all they had was a course or two in medical terminology and a coding course or two. They had no real understanding of what was in the record. Guess who was happier on the job.
I would analyze patterns in their physicians billing. Once when presenting to a group of hem-oncs I noted that there was a left shift in their data. It was a hematology joke that the physicans immediately got and were able to identify the physician involved. When you can do that, they learn to trust you because they know you understand.
If you don't know something simple like the difference between type 1 and T2DM and why someone with T2DM might need insulin at times they will quickly realize your educational level or lack thereof and treat you accordingly. It takes education and experience to reach that level of credibility. A quickie course in coding and billing won't do it.
But if all you want to do is transfer billing data from a form to a computer screen 8 hours a day all you need to do is know how to type. The person who idiot-proofed that form so the docotr can't bill for something insurance won't pay for is the one who makes the real money, not the clerk.
As the nation transitions from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10 all the codes for everything will change. It's going from numeric to alphanumeric codes. Everyone has to learn them from scratch except the cancer registrars, who have been using them for awhile now. Medicare changes regulations from one thing to another and back again the next week sometimes without telling you.
If you want the jobs that pay the best in coding, you have to know your way around the inpatient medical record. There are different levels of coding and everbody thinks they can code.
One lady with 20 years experience coding for physicians made the transition to inpatient billing. She came to me one day because she didn't know how to code from the actual record that was 5 inches thick. I took one look at the admitting orders, asked her if the patient had congenital liver disease or was alcoholic, then told her what the patient had and what was causing the bleeding. The doc had not entered a diagnosis. She had no idea how I did that. Just taking coding and med term doesn't prepare you to do everything. You have to understand the medical record.
I mentioned cancer registrars. There are also trauma registrars who concentrate on collecting data from burn and accident victims records. There are many, many areas other than coding to specialize in.
Even transcriptionists can specializes in areas like radiology or pathology. A number of places who sent their work overseas brought it back here, but it is still something that can be easily outsourced. You can work from home but your pay rate is based on your output.
As we go to electronic medical records, there is is going to be an increasing need for people with a healthcare background to transition into HIM. The federal govt has given consortiums of community colleges money to set up new tracks dealing with the EMR. The plan is to also put the course materials online for free. These programs are meant to be under 6 months in length. You might want to check into those. If you have a good background in healthcare, you might enjoy being an implementation specialist for new systems. You could even subspecialize in areas such as lab or nursing implementation.
The EMR also means a lot of jobs can be done from home once you have experience.
Someone mentioned medical laboratory science. This is also a field where you can specialize and work outside of a hospital. The higher up you go the more intellectually challenging it is. Just imagine trying to troubleshoot one of those automated lab machines or working to make sure your accuracy level is at the high level needed. I read recently where a consultant (MBA) trying to implement digital pathology found after study that one barrier to adoption was the need for pathologists to fine tune the viewing on a slide to allow for wrinkled tissues, different levels in a slide sample, etc. Uh, yeah. Anybody who works in a lab can tell you that. If you were a lab professional, you would know this. Who would make the better consultant here? Who understands the issues?
Then again, there are people who love to do nothing but blood draws in an outpatient lab or working in a file room. They don't have to get involved in hospital politics.
Most colleges have a counseling center that can offer you testing to see what your interests are. Get the book What Color is Your Parachute, too. It is a good place to begin to explore. Call up some of the professionals in fields you are interested in. Ask if you can come and observe and talk to them.
If you want to be an epidemiologist count on needing a masters or doctorate. Public Health usually requires a masters at least. It depends on what level you want to practice. A lot of ac****ing firms have consulting practices that hire health professionals.
I'm an RHIA (among other things). Health Information Management still needs a lot of people contact, but a number of jobs do concentrate on data rather than sick people. The higher up you get, the more people skills you need. The happiest people I know went into consulting. It combines data and people.
I dealt only with physicians but I have my masters. Sometimes I would spend 2-3 days one on one with a physician to go over billing issues as they saw patients throughout the day. I did seminars for groups of physicians.
A lot of the time the billing clerks present had no idea what I was talking about when I did these physician sessions because all they had was a course or two in medical terminology and a coding course or two. They had no real understanding of what was in the record. Guess who was happier on the job.
I would analyze patterns in their physicians billing. Once when presenting to a group of hem-oncs I noted that there was a left shift in their data. It was a hematology joke that the physicans immediately got and were able to identify the physician involved. When you can do that, they learn to trust you because they know you understand.
If you don't know something simple like the difference between type 1 and T2DM and why someone with T2DM might need insulin at times they will quickly realize your educational level or lack thereof and treat you accordingly. It takes education and experience to reach that level of credibility. A quickie course in coding and billing won't do it.
But if all you want to do is transfer billing data from a form to a computer screen 8 hours a day all you need to do is know how to type. The person who idiot-proofed that form so the docotr can't bill for something insurance won't pay for is the one who makes the real money, not the clerk.
As the nation transitions from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10 all the codes for everything will change. It's going from numeric to alphanumeric codes. Everyone has to learn them from scratch except the cancer registrars, who have been using them for awhile now. Medicare changes regulations from one thing to another and back again the next week sometimes without telling you.
If you want the jobs that pay the best in coding, you have to know your way around the inpatient medical record. There are different levels of coding and everbody thinks they can code.
One lady with 20 years experience coding for physicians made the transition to inpatient billing. She came to me one day because she didn't know how to code from the actual record that was 5 inches thick. I took one look at the admitting orders, asked her if the patient had congenital liver disease or was alcoholic, then told her what the patient had and what was causing the bleeding. The doc had not entered a diagnosis. She had no idea how I did that. Just taking coding and med term doesn't prepare you to do everything. You have to understand the medical record.
I mentioned cancer registrars. There are also trauma registrars who concentrate on collecting data from burn and accident victims records. There are many, many areas other than coding to specialize in.
Even transcriptionists can specializes in areas like radiology or pathology. A number of places who sent their work overseas brought it back here, but it is still something that can be easily outsourced. You can work from home but your pay rate is based on your output.
As we go to electronic medical records, there is is going to be an increasing need for people with a healthcare background to transition into HIM. The federal govt has given consortiums of community colleges money to set up new tracks dealing with the EMR. The plan is to also put the course materials online for free. These programs are meant to be under 6 months in length. You might want to check into those. If you have a good background in healthcare, you might enjoy being an implementation specialist for new systems. You could even subspecialize in areas such as lab or nursing implementation.
The EMR also means a lot of jobs can be done from home once you have experience.
Someone mentioned medical laboratory science. This is also a field where you can specialize and work outside of a hospital. The higher up you go the more intellectually challenging it is. Just imagine trying to troubleshoot one of those automated lab machines or working to make sure your accuracy level is at the high level needed. I read recently where a consultant (MBA) trying to implement digital pathology found after study that one barrier to adoption was the need for pathologists to fine tune the viewing on a slide to allow for wrinkled tissues, different levels in a slide sample, etc. Uh, yeah. Anybody who works in a lab can tell you that. If you were a lab professional, you would know this. Who would make the better consultant here? Who understands the issues?
Then again, there are people who love to do nothing but blood draws in an outpatient lab or working in a file room. They don't have to get involved in hospital politics.
Most colleges have a counseling center that can offer you testing to see what your interests are. Get the book What Color is Your Parachute, too. It is a good place to begin to explore. Call up some of the professionals in fields you are interested in. Ask if you can come and observe and talk to them.
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