Senior Outpatient Coder

Houston Methodist; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 50,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Senior Outpatient Coder to ensure accurate coding of surgical and observation encounters. In this vital role, you will interact with coding teams and healthcare stakeholders, ensuring compliance with coding standards and regulations. Your expertise in ICD-10-CM and CPT coding will contribute to high-quality patient data management. This position offers the opportunity to enhance your skills in a supportive environment while actively participating in coding education and quality improvement initiatives. Join a team dedicated to excellence in healthcare coding and make a significant impact on patient care.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of outpatient coding experience or completion of transition program.
• Associate's degree in accredited health informatics program required.

Responsibilities

• Assign diagnostic and procedural codes accurately for outpatient encounters.
• Maintain coding quality and compliance with regulatory guidelines.

Skills

ICD-10-CM Coding

CPT Coding

Electronic Health Record (EHR)

Communication Skills

Attention to Detail

Education

Associate's Degree in Health Informatics

Additional Experience in Coding

Tools

Electronic Encoder Application

Job description

At Houston Methodist, the Senior Outpatient Coder position is responsible for ensuring diagnostic and procedure codes are assigned accurately to day surgery and observation encounters based upon documentation within the electronic medical record while maintaining compliance with established rules and regulatory guidelines.

PEOPLE ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Interacts and communicates effectively with members of the coding team and the appropriate stakeholders.

• Participates and provides good feedback during coding section meetings and coding education inservices as well as takes initiative to assist others and shares knowledge with the appropriate stakeholders.

SERVICE ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Responds promptly to internal and external customer requests. Responds promptly and appropriately to requests to code or review coded accounts for accuracy.

• Initiates queries with physicians to obtain or clarify diagnoses and/or procedures as appropriate, utilizing the established physician query process.

QUALITY/SAFETY ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Responsible for assigning diagnostic and procedural codes to encounters of high complexity.

• Maintains and achieves departmental standards of coding quality by assigning accurate ICD-10-CM/ICD-10-PCS and CPT codes and APC assignment utilizing an electronic encoder application in accordance with hospital policy and regulatory body guidelines.

• Maintains and achieves departmental standards of abstracting quality by reviewing the discharge disposition entered by nursing and corrects if necessary in order to achieve the highest quality of entered data. Assigns and enters physician identification number and procedure date correctly in the medical record abstracting system.

• Reviews medical record documentation and abstracts data into the encoder and Electronic Health Record (EHR) to determine principal or final diagnosis, co-morbid conditions and complications, secondary conditions and procedures. Utilizes all tools/resources for accuracy.

• Complies with the Standards of Ethical Coding as set forth by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and adheres to official guidelines.

FINANCE ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Utilizes time effectively. Consistently codes and abstracts at or above departmental standards of productivity while ensuring accuracy of coding.

• Supports meeting organizational goal for Accounts Receivables (AR) associated with uncoded accounts.

• Maintains coding timeframes within established departmental standards by ensuring all work items assigned to the coding queues are processed in a timely manner.

GROWTH/INNOVATION ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

• Critically evaluates own performance, accepts constructive criticism, and looks for ways to improve.

• Displays initiative to improve relative to job function. Contributes ideas to help improve quality of coding data and abstracting data.

This job description is not intended to be all-inclusive; the employee will also perform other reasonably related business/job duties as assigned. Houston Methodist reserves the right to revise job duties and responsibilities as the need arises.

EDUCATION

• Associate's or higher degree in a Comission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Managment accredited program or additional two years of experience (in addition to the minimum experience requirements listed below) in lieu of degree

WORK EXPERIENCE

• Three years of relevant outpatient coding experience or successful completion of the Houston Methodist Senior Outpatient Coder Transition Program