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Welcome to this group of medical business "majors" and careers. These topics are especially meaningful for those who have an interest in the medical fields, but prefer the kind of work that doesn't require direct contact with patients. Some argue that medical office workers are not really essential because successful medical treatment is possible without them (as on the battlefield or most parts  of the world a half century ago). Well, the response can be quite direct and compelling: Imagine going to an emergency room for a broken bone and kidney stone, and telling the receptionist (oops, not there) about your difficulty, show your medical insurance card (oops, don't have one),  expect them to keep your medical procedures and prescriptions straight (ooops, no one to do that) ... you get the idea.

You don't have to be wearing a bright red cross on your sleeve to show you care about people who are frightened, worried, and hurting. You demonstrate your care and professionalism by engaging an information system that sometimes seems impossibly complicated; and yet you face the patients and professionals around you with confidence and a spirit of service to them.

That's how you will succeed in this careers. Anything less, and it's just another job. Learn more about this in the Career Bits section.

Now for a brief word from our sponsors ...

Career Bits for Medical Office Records and Administration

All five of these careers require at least an Associate's degree from an accredited 2-year community college. Certification is nearly always required by employers; but anyone who is serious about making a decent living with one of these jobs will get the certification. There are hundreds of places on the Web where you can learn about the usual stuff such as education requirements, desired personality traits, pay scales, future outlook for the occupations. After a while, these places begin looking like cut-and-paste presentations.

But let's assume you want something more than a 9-to-5 job, complete  with some vacation time, sick leave, your own cubicle, and annual raises. If that sounds great, do it. This is for some of the other kinds of people.

Here are a couple of things you should understand for the outset. (1) You are probably aware that it is possible to create a home-based career from medical transcription and medical billing & coding. Right? I'm  sure some of you find that prospect very appealing. (2) In the USA, the medical records business is undergoing a mandated transformation from paper to digital records. This means you can be getting in on the ground floor of what amounts to a new kind of technology-based career. (3) You have most  likely seen the online chatter  about how one or more of these professions will disappear or change so much that all your education and experience will be obsolete.

Next, see if you can set aside all the negative talk and cautionary advice, look deep inside yourself, and see if you can clear away the emotional and mental junk that might be hiding what you really and  truly want to do. This isn't always an easy exercise. This is a thought exercise, so you can do some crazy things such as setting aside your family responsibilities, the necessity of your current job, money requirements, schooling requirements, poor high school grades, and acne. You need to find out what you really want to do, and without the encumbrances of so-called "reality." Eighty percent of the excuses we have for non-action are not really encumbrances at all. The remaining 20 percent can be dealt with in some rational  fashion--it's matter of accepting changes.

Finally, let's suppose you see one of these medical careers as a one you can really dig  into and make something of it, yourself, and your family. You don't like the statistics on median pay?  The "median"  represents the "ordinary." Look at those figures out on the right-hand side of the curve ... that's where you are going. You don't like  the fact that the demand for a particular skill will drop 50 percent over the next ten years? That isn't entirely bad news -- it means less competition among the best who remain. Be one of  them.

And please tell your cohorts about this page at Free-Ed.Net. Thanks.

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