Wiki Impact of Pandemic on CPC internships and externships - we need a new paradigm

[priyanka@mindspring.com]

The COVID pandemic has impacted the way in which services are provided today. The primary means of communications are based on online access to project teams and the resources required. The project members are mainly working from home.

This presents a considerable difficulty for those professions that benefit from an internship, entry level jobs or mentoring as the work is done online at home by geographically dispersed members. As an example, computer programming entry positions were based upon working closely onsite with project teams to benefit from their experience and guidance.

The medical coding profession is one that traditionally benefited from healthcare providers offering internships/externships to newly certified coders to ramp up.

As post-pandemic medical coding seems to be completely online and geographically dispersed, it is imperative that the AAPC and current experienced coding professionals focus on this situation so that the supply of newly certified coders is able to contribute quickly if mentoring, internships, and externships can be provided in this new online environment.

We must all act on this to ensure a constant stream of new coding professionals is available to our healthcare institutions.

Priyanka Chaturvedi, CPC-A

 

[priyanka@mindspring.com]

One key question to be addressed is how the experience that was provided to interns in an office and face-to-face environment can be provided when teams are working remotely and online.

The AAPC has provided general guidelines about the content of an externship program. I have read it and it does not have enough information to develop a new training curriculum for an online and remote environment.

Priyanka Chaturvedi, CPC-A

 

[priyanka@mindspring.com]

I would be interested in understanding the internships/externships situations that others are experiencing currently in the post-pandemic environment.

I recently checked with a local dental facility in NJ. I was told due to state and American Dental Association guidelines currently in place, they are cautious with having additional personnel in their facility.