For as long as people are in need of medical attention, health care will always be a booming industry. If you’re in a phase of your life in which you’re debating over where to bring your smarts and services, rest assured that there will always be employment waiting for you in a hospital. The real question is which health care job is best for you personally.One factor to consider, is how technology will is applied to each field. With advancements in CDI software, everything is now a bit more manageable. What kind of commitment are you willing to give to your training? What kind of base salary are you looking for? And most importantly, which job do you find most interesting? In this article, we will give you a rundown of the pros and cons for each.
Registered Nurse (RN)
Nursing is a growing field, however there still remains a shortage in the country. This is a job in which you will have incomparable liberty in your schedule. You’ll typically only have to work three 12-hour shifts and the rest of the week will be yours. The average wage is around $65,000 per year. You will be responsible for providing anything from ongoing inpatient care to advanced emergency cardiac life support.
You only need an associate degree, which means your schooling will be no longer than two years. You’ll also have options to expand your career in the future. A potential downside is that your job will consist much more of patient care than it will of decision making and critical thinking about treatment options. In any case, now when you record patient information, you can use special software that makes the entire process substantially simpler and more efficient.
Radiology Technician
Another option is to become an x-ray tech. You can expect to make a solid $55,000 a year. That’s plenty for you to live comfortably while still saving. You will work with physicians to provide radiological imaging, which means you’ll have to have an extensive knowledge of the anatomy and many diseases. You’ll learn how to give C-T scans, MRIs, and other kinds of x-rays, while operating various types of medical machinery. You can also complete this schooling inside of two years with an associate degree.
Health Information Technician / Medical Coder
If you’re interested in learning about medicine and expanding your knowledge but are not thrilled about performing direct patient care, you can become a coder. You will earn between $36,000 and $40,000 a year. You’ll develop an extensive knowledge of medical terminology, all ICD-10 codes and you’ll learn about the intricacies of the U.S. health care billing system. In years past, this has been a gruelingly difficult and time consuming job due to the complexity of the U.S. version of ICD-10, which has some 70,000+ different codes.
Not to mention the fact that they change every year or so. However, with recent advancements in CDI software, namely the Hiteks ICD-10 compliant CAPD360 Insight, a medical documentation improvement software that functions in real-time and comes with a medical diagnosis calculator capable of providing case mix index optimization, severity of illness analysis and a risk adjustment factor score on a case to case basis. As a result, everything about a coder’s job has become remarkably easier and more accessible, making this arguably one of the most appealing jobs on this list.
If you have any questions regarding Hiteks’ medical medical documentation improvement software, give them a call today at 212-920-0929.