My pathology group is preparing to hire another coder. I could use some advice from you all about the typical duties of a path coder.
Here's the situation: I am the first certified coder hired for my path group of about 14 pathologists. Prior to my hire, coding was done by two other individuals. This is also my first coding job. Prior to this I worked in direct patient care, having had no experience on the coding or billing side of health care. I am working part time doing some of the coding and one of the other individuals (my clinic administrator) does the other coding. My administrator would like to offload the coding. I was asked if I wanted full-time, and I don't, so we plan to hire another part-time coder.
There are a number of things I do in my job for which I wonder are typical for a coder or not. My concern is that if there are job duties that really aren't appropriate for a coder, we might have a hard time hiring someone who has no interest in those duties. As we are also hiring more secretarial help, I would like to have a conversation about whether some of these duties should be secretarial, and create a clearer job description for our coders.
Although we use an electronic system for our pathology records, we are still using a paper system for our requisitions and coding. Requisition come in and make their way through the secretaries, the lab, the pathologist, and then to coding. Codes are hand-written on the requisition and then sent off to our billing service.
In addition to coding, I do a fair amount of requisition sorting, removing extraneous paperwork from the requisitions, and un-stapling, copying, and re-stapling. I also call or fax for missing insurance information. I would estimate that this additional paperwork takes as much as 20-25% of my work time.
So...is this common for a path coder or is this unusual? I would greatly appreciate some clarification about what is typical for the job duties of a pathology coder.
Here's the situation: I am the first certified coder hired for my path group of about 14 pathologists. Prior to my hire, coding was done by two other individuals. This is also my first coding job. Prior to this I worked in direct patient care, having had no experience on the coding or billing side of health care. I am working part time doing some of the coding and one of the other individuals (my clinic administrator) does the other coding. My administrator would like to offload the coding. I was asked if I wanted full-time, and I don't, so we plan to hire another part-time coder.
There are a number of things I do in my job for which I wonder are typical for a coder or not. My concern is that if there are job duties that really aren't appropriate for a coder, we might have a hard time hiring someone who has no interest in those duties. As we are also hiring more secretarial help, I would like to have a conversation about whether some of these duties should be secretarial, and create a clearer job description for our coders.
Although we use an electronic system for our pathology records, we are still using a paper system for our requisitions and coding. Requisition come in and make their way through the secretaries, the lab, the pathologist, and then to coding. Codes are hand-written on the requisition and then sent off to our billing service.
In addition to coding, I do a fair amount of requisition sorting, removing extraneous paperwork from the requisitions, and un-stapling, copying, and re-stapling. I also call or fax for missing insurance information. I would estimate that this additional paperwork takes as much as 20-25% of my work time.
So...is this common for a path coder or is this unusual? I would greatly appreciate some clarification about what is typical for the job duties of a pathology coder.