What is the difference between medical transcription and medical coding?

Answer 1

Medical transcription is listening to doctor dictation and typing it for the patient's medical record. Medical coding and billing is applying industry standard codes to medical procedures, tools used, etc and then applying dollar amounts and billing insurance companies, patients, medicare, medicaid, etc.

Let me give an example. Say a woman comes into the hospital to have a baby. After the doctor sees her, the doctor will dictate into a recorded what happened during the visit. That dictation will be sent to the medical transcriptionist via the internet. The transcriptionist will then listen to the file, format and type it and then send it back via the internet. The typed file will then be sent to the medical coder/biller. The coder/biller will apply codes to the # of hours the dr was with the patient, the # of hours the nurses were with the patient and baby, all the supplies used during the delivery, the medications used during their stay, etc. The codes are industry standard codes. Then the coder/biller will apply dollar amounts to each code and prepare the bill for the insurance companies, etc.

Training is generally required for both careers (there are also training for both - packaged courses). Usually employers will require training or previous experience. One would think it would be easy to listen and type what you hear but that is not the case. You need to learn how to spell medical terms and recognize them when you hear them. You need to know how to format the medical record correctly. A plus would be learning how to use keyboard shortcuts to be able to complete your work faster. Medical transcriptionists are generally paid by production so the faster you can type, the more money you can make. You also need to practice with lot of real doctor dictation. This is because there are many different ways to pronounce the same words, accents, you need to get used to recognizing medical terms when you hear them, and doctors don't always speak clearly and slowly. Throw ESL doctors in the mix and you can really get mixed up! Employers usually will test your skills before they even look at your resume. If you don't pass, you don't get a call.

For medical coding and billing, training is also generally required. Again employers will usually test your skills before they will look at your application. You have to at least know how to look up codes- experienced coders will have a lot of regularly used codes memorized.

What's nice is that training can take you anywhere from 4 months to a year to complete for both careers so you can be ready to enter the job market in a relatively short period of time. (Most courses are self-paced.)