The healthcare industry changes every day, making continuing education vital to your success as an allied health professional. That’s why NHA requires Continuing Education (CE) credits to maintain certification. And when it comes to creating new educational content, we turn to some of the industry’s top experts — active leaders of the allied health community who are helping shape the future of healthcare.
Coding and reporting is one of the most important and ever-changing areas of focus in the world of allied health. To help our certification holders stay current, we’ve connected with one of the industry’s leading experts, Michelle Green, on the topic for our latest CE series, 2018 Coding Updates.
Michelle A. Green, MPS, RHIA, FAHIMA, CPC is a distinguished textbook author, professor and allied health professional. She holds a master of professional studies degree from Alfred University, a bachelor of science degree from Daemen College, Buffalo and an associate in applied science degree from Alfred State College.
Michelle also has more than 25 years of experience in allied health education and holds the title of SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus from Alfred State College where she taught courses face-to-face and online in the health information technology and coding/reimbursement specialist programs.
Michelle’s advice for becoming successful in the coding profession is to maintain up-to-date industry knowledge through various continuing education opportunities.
She also shares an expert tip on the most effective way to approach CE learning.
“The best way to remain up-to-date in the billing and coding profession is to attack using a piecemeal approach, which means setting aside a period of time each week (e.g., 2-3 hours) to read professional journals, attend local professional meetings, and take online CEU quizzes.”
What better way to earn continuing education credits than from Michelle herself?
In the three-piece article series, Michelle discusses the annual changes to three coding systems (ICD-10-PCS, ICD-10-CM and CPT) and accompanies her explanations with examples for each.
- Article 1: 2018 ICD-10-PCS Coding Update
- Article 2: 2018 ICD-10-CM Coding Update
- Article 3: 2018 CPT Coding Update
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We wanted to learn more about Michelle’s industry expertise so we asked a few questions that we thought would be most valuable to our certification holders.
Below, Michelle shares some more insight into billing and coding and how to keep up in allied healthcare.
How can you make yourself stand out in this profession?
Certification holders can become exemplary in the coding profession when they seek out ways to remain up-to-date by subscribing to and carefully reading professional journals, attending continuing education events (e.g., local professional association meetings), and participating in online continuing education activities (e.g., reading professional articles and submitted related CEU quizzes).
Do you have any study tips to make learning these updates easier?
The best way to remain up-to-date in the billing and coding profession is to attack continuing education by using a piecemeal approach, which means setting aside a period of time each week (e.g., 2-3 hours) to read professional journals, attend local professional meetings, and take online CEU quizzes. This approach helps ensure that content learned is retained.
What advice would you give to someone new to Billing and Coding? How about advice for a veteran of the profession?
The billing and coding profession requires attention to detail, and as importantly, the willingness to ask questions about what is not understood. There is much to be learned by asking questions of established billing and coding professionals, including both technical content and professional skills.
I encourage veteran billing and coding professionals to encourage and mentor new professionals as this is a way to establish your legacy in the profession.
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NHA certificate holders have exclusive access to our CE library with no additional fees. To access Michelle's article and CE credits, log in to your NHA account now.
Before completing NHA CE, you should check the rules or regulations of the licensing or regulatory agency of your state, in case there are different requirements.
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We’re grateful to have experts like Michelle contributing valuable content to our continuing education opportunities with this latest addition of articles to the series: 2018 Coding Updates.
We believe there’s no better source of learning than from the men and women who are actively working and leading the industry today!