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How Employers Hire
If you want to effectively sell yourself to an employer, you'll need to learn a little about your buyer. We spoke to dozens of employers and found five trends they stick to when hiring. Use them to your advantage and you might get better hits:
A. If your name looks vaguely familiar; you'll have one up on the competition.
B. They prefer to hire from within. They'll already know your work ethic, attendance, performance and that you've already been through the background checks.
C. They talk first, post later. Employers with an opening will speed dial all of their coding colleagues to get a referral long before (or if ever) posting to the outside world.
D. They want to see you're dedicated to coding as a profession. They want you to be a member of the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC) or the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and get credentialed; it shows them you view this as a career and will be a continual learner.
E. Personality and a passion for coding can ultimately win them over.
-By Ainsley Maloney
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We know. You can't get a job without experience, but you can't get experience without a job. Well ADVANCE put out a call to new hires who recently landed their first coding jobs to find out: What did they do? What were their secrets?
The results may surprise you. Of the five new coders we interviewed, from a 22-year-old recent grad to a 62-year-old second careerist, none had the necessary certified coding specialist (CCS) or certified professional coder (CPC) credentials; none had a single day of salaried coding experience, yet all landed their dream coding jobs in less than a year.
How did they do it? To find out, first read the sidebar "How Employers Hire," and familiarize yourself with trends A through E. Then get ready for some tough love answers on why these coders got hired over you.
Secret #1
They got their foot in the door-and one up on you. You're probably cringing at the words "entry-level." You've already finished a coding program and received your CCS or registered health information technician (RHIT) credential; you shouldn't have to start at the bottom, right?
Well it turns out, getting into a hospital or physician's office entry-level might just be the smartest thing you coulddo. Take 29-year-old Karen Pope, CMA (AAMA), CCA, CPC-H. At age 24, after working 4 years as a medical office receptionist, Pope decided to get into HIM and started as a file clerk at Caldwell Memorial Hospital, Lenoir, NC.
Pope proved herself quickly, moved up to emergency room (ER) outpatient assembly and when a coding position opened up, she was asked to take it on.
Did you catch that? She was asked to take it on.
As far as then-HIM supervisor Karen Coffey, CPC, CCS, was concerned, Pope's no coding experience, no education and no credentials paled in the face of her work ethic and track record. "We hired from outside in the past and got burned. Bad," Coffey said. "Just because they have credentials doesn't mean they've followed the best coding practices. It's like grabbing out of a grab bag" (see trends A, B and E).
Then there is 24-year-old Jenny Amador, CPC, who used an entry-level position as a more strategic move to launch her coding career. While taking medical billing/coding classes at a technical institute at night, Amador applied for a full-time, entry-level demographics job at a large radiology group. "I saw it as a way to get into coding," she said.
While there, Amador asked to try coding every chance she got, and when a position opened up 1 year later, Amador was hired. She is now a coding specialist at CIPROMS South Medical Billing in Tampa, FL.
If you aren't paying attention to this, you're missing a key point: While you're turning your nose up at entry-level positions in search of your ideal coding job, it may never come. It's already being filled internally by the clerk or biller the employer knows. It looks like you need to get your foot in, or you may never see the door.
You can do this many ways: by applying for entry-level positions, taking on an internship or volunteering. Consider in the 11 years Peter Micallef has been the director of medical records at Victory Memorial Hospital, New York City, every single one of the 11 coders he's hired started as his intern. There's also an added bonus to this: while moving up the coding ladder, both Pope and Amador gotall of their credentials for free, paid for by their employer.
Secret #2
They went where the employers are. What if wetold you we knew a place where each month, 20 or so employers from your area gathered together and talked about job opportunities they had available? Well, there is. It's called your local American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC) or American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) chapters. That's where the employers are. That's where you should be.
Marlene Barletta, CPC-A, was in her late 40s when telecommunications layoffs brought her to the coding program at Hillsborough Community College, Tampa, FL. With the hope of meeting more people in the coding world, Barletta joined her local AAPC chapter and received her CPC-A.
Barletta lacked experience, but just 2 months into her job search an opening came to her-literally-through an e-newsletter from her local chapter. Barletta was in the loop, and the employer she applied to, Lynn Reedy, CPC, director of coding services at CIPROMS South Medical Billing and chapter board member, recognized her name.
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