Are Medical Coders Being Replaced By Computers?

Are Medical Coders Being Replaced By Computers? https://www.cco.us/

Alicia: OK. Medical coders being replaced by computers? My husband came home this afternoon, I was working on this slide and I said, "Have you ever heard somebody saying that they thought their job was going to be being replaced by computers?" And of course he had.

Q: This person, Teresa had asked: "I am wondering when coders are being replaced by computers? My doctor told me this just last week, so I am wondering how soon this will happen. I planned to pursue a coding career but I am wondering if it will be doable now. -- Teresa"

A: Well, Teresa, don't worry; it's going to be fine. There're a lot of discussions out there about the coders being replaced, but it's not going to happen. There're two main reasons, this is my personal opinion why coders aren't going to be replaced by computers. The first one: 1) A computer is only as smart as the person inputting the data. Right there, you're going to have coders who put the information into the computer. 2) A computer has no objectivity. So, it cannot distinguish or understand exactly what the doctor is wanting to say if he's not using key words, as well as, he can't query the physician like you can.

Now, computer assisted coding (CAC) is something that you will start seeing more and more though in the future. It is very helpful to coders. It allows them to scan the documents, you can highlight the relevant information to pick the codes, but it will never replace the coder as the decision maker and the code approver. A CAC system will increase coder productivity which will benefit both the patient and the facility.

So, the role of the coder is not going to go away. It's going to change, and of course we're going to adapt. We're going to have increased auditing skills; and with the time saving tools of having a CAC, the coder can increase their personal education. Another thing I was thinking of today, I think you'll see more specialty coders as well. It takes less time to approve codes that the CAC assigns than it does to actually manually assign the codes. This is going to allow for more time to devote to quality assurance, physician education in documentation, as well as increasing your education.

Now, so what exactly does a CAC do? It improves accuracy -- is one of the points. There is a significant improvement in accuracy that can be seen through a rate of denial decreases, reduction in auditing discrepancies and a reduction in finding lost charges. Increasing the rate of accuracy helps the organization capture charges that would otherwise be lost. So, what it is, it's going to be actually doing basic coding for you and repetitious coding that just takes up your time, and it's going to give a red flag when one needs to be done. It's going to improve compliance. What the CAC strives to get it right the first time and it also increases the productivity, like we mentioned before ... comes to compliance as well. Since coding is accurate and consistent, work time and rebilling is reduced as a result, and your compliance is constant.

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