Medical Coding: Another Doomed Job?

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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 doctors
services from payers. TL, DR medical coding
exists so doctors get paid fairly. Why then, is
such an important job doomed? Dont 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 ICD- 10 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
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• 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

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• 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?
• Lets 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 doctors paycheck and
  a patients 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
• Its time medical coding and AI meet halfway
  through, not replace one another.

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