Medical Coding: Another Doomed Job? A medical coder translates medical diagnoses and procedures into standardized alphanumeric codes for billing. These codes are used in patient documentation to generate accurate bills, ensuring timely reimbursement for the doctor’s services from payers. TL, DR: medical coding exists so doctors get paid fairly.
Why then, is such an important job doomed? Don’t get us wrong; medical coding remains one of the most valuable practices in the healthcare industry. Every healthcare provider bogged under millions of patient records is in need of a medical coder who can translate their charts and SOAP notes into appropriate medical code. However, this need for high data accuracy is also the same reason why medical coding becomes prone to human errors, data oversight, wrong ICD10 code assignment, extreme administrative burden, under-coding, and eventually, loss of revenue.
But how does it affect doctors? One line of incorrect medical code can cost millions of doctors their fair share of the revenue. Moreover, the American Medical Association (AMA) proved
this fear right by estimating that every coding error costs the healthcare industry approximately $36 billion annually. Things get worse, as incorrect medical code leads to :
Incorrect patient treatment The horror of neverending claim denials Delay in revenue reimbursement for doctors Delay in patient care Loss of trust on both sides
Researchers in varied fields of data analysis have procured the primary causes of medical coding errors, with the most common being:
Lack of skilled medical coders Lack of sufficient charts and documentation Insufficient administrative staff No communication between doctors and coders Medical coder burnout and frustration
Coders would get frustrated,” says Dr David Provenghi, ProSciento, “It could take so long to find a suitable match that when they saw something that looked close they chose it.”
Here is Where Technology Comes to Rescue Outsourcing skilled medical coders can be one of the solutions, but all the more an expensive one, which many hospitals cannot afford. With so much in line, the healthcare industry has finally confided in technology to rescue its administration from inaccuracy, burnout and lost revenue. Automation’s beauty lies in precision and enhancing speed, mostly in the fields of administration and documentation. The use of cutting-edge AI technology like Machine and Deep Learning in the suggestion of appropriate medical codes has promised accuracy by reducing coding errors by up to 42%. Automation in medical coding, therefore, leads to:
drastic medical coding efficiency. increased focus and quality time in doctor-patient interaction. higher productivity and faster pace of administration. Improved clinical decision-making, planning of hospital operations. Bidding goodbye to denials with streamlined accurate documentation. Increased reimbursement efficiency, and improved workplace environment.
Doctors can loosen the rope of extensive paperwork around their necks and focus on what they signed up for; treating their patients. AI saved 50% of physicians from exhaustive non-clinical burnout and wiped off 38% of the administrative paperwork load for hospital staff. However, medical coders are still questioning what their jobs would look like In the future.
So, will AI replace human medical coders? Let’s be clear here. When we raised the question of whether coding jobs are doomed, we sincerely meant “traditional” medical coding. This involves extreme manual shortages, and a painstaking load on medical coders to sift through heaps of documents to get one code right. Without AI, inefficiency in administration is horribly eating away at a doctor’s paycheck and a patient’s apt treatment. Therefore, medical coders should forgo the traditional coding mechanism, and adapt to COLLABORATING with AI.
Verdict: Not Replaced, but Enhanced Medical Coding AI meets the following scenarios where the expertise of a medical coding professional is superior:
Encountering unique or exceptional circumstances outside of the data fed, where human understanding of context and nuance in diagnosis is needed. Detect ambiguity in medical coding with a broader, more sophisticated depth of understanding of code ambiguities, physician jargon, and a wide range of consultations. Understanding gray areas beyond ICD classification and discovering contradictions in rules through ethical, moral and clinical judgment. Understanding the ethics of patient care It’s time medical coding and AI meet halfway through, not replace one another. That being said, routine tasks that cost manual labor and administrative burnout, or un-clinical tasks for which doctors need assistance, are slowly fading from the scope of employment. AI has proven to excel in repetitive systemic tasks. Yet, it is the true expertise of professionals that healthcare still embraces as the top priority in patient care and a thriving force in the industry. Myth- ” Medical Coding jobs are Doomed”: Successfully debunked!
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