#my day job is a medical coder

[courtneycraberry]

I finished that WIP Hadestown inspired Emmrook doodle from last week 😬 one with a background and one without because I'm indecisive lmao

Inspiration/Reference:

[specialagentartemis]

Murderbot September Day 3: Augments

“Augments” specifically refer to implanted, integrated, artificial parts with feed access and bio-feedback. An ordinary prosthetic isn’t an augment.

Three hundred years ago, augmentation was relatively rare. It was overwhelmingly done for specific careers, such as spaceship pilots, doctors, lawyers, and high-powered financial professionals—people who needed to process and juggle a lot of information quickly. This was when the ancestors of Preservation took off on the Pressy and were out of contact with the rest of the galaxy for two hundred years.

By the time they awoke from cryo-sleep, augmentation had become a LOT more common. Ordinary businesspeople were getting augmented as kind of a status symbol—saying, my job is so important, so fast-paced, so high-profile, that I need augments to keep up with it. I’m Important. It also became increasingly done by coders, programmers, tech professionals, in order to remain competitive in tech jobs. Brain-feed augmentation for children as young as 11 or 12 became increasingly common—the younger you get brain augments, the more neuroplastic you are at that point, the easier the integration is and the more natural it feels to connect to the feed. This is done both by parents wanting their kids to have an advantage getting high-profile jobs, but can also be sponsored by companies in exchange for promising the kid to be contracted to work for them for a certain number of years when they come of age. Sometimes, this is considered a really good deal.

The people of Preservation were incredibly offput by this.

Even now, nearly a hundred years later, augments are seen as a “corporate thing” on Preservation. Few people are augmented, and they’re still mostly doctors and pilots, and augmentation of children is illegal unless it’s for a legitimate medical cause (certain types of augments were developed for treating things like brain injuries or seizure disorders, for example.) As such, it’s rare but not unheard of to see augmented humans on Preservation. It still… tends to get a knee-jerk emotional reaction of “that’s a vain/barbaric Corporate thing,” though.

Pin-Lee has considered getting augmented before. By this point, you almost never encounter Corporation Rim lawyers who aren’t. When she’s negotiating interplanetary contracts, it’s a valuable tool to get on their level. And lawyers who aren’t augmented are kind of seen as naïve newbies punching about their weight class. But she hasn’t, partially out of 1) legitimate medical concerns that augments could interact poorly with her medication, and 2) pride and spite that she doesn’t have to make herself Like Them to be just as good at her job as them.

[mariacallous]

Addressing a single executive order from Donald Trump’s voluminous first-day edicts is like singling out one bullet in a burst from an AK-47. But one of them hit me in the gut. That is “Establishing and Implementing the President’s Department of Government Efficiency.’’ The acronym for that name is DOGE (named after a memecoin), and it’s the Elon Musk–led effort to cut government spending by a trillion bucks or two. Though DOGE was, until this week, pitched as an outside body, this move makes it an official part of government—by embedding it in an existing agency that was formerly part of the Office of Management and Budget called the United States Digital Service. The latter will now be known as the US DOGE Service, and its new head will be more tightly connected to the president, reporting to his chief of staff.

The new USDS will apparently shift its former laser focus on building cost-efficient and well-designed software for various agencies to a hardcore implementation of the Musk vision. It’s kind of like a government version of a SPAC, the dodgy financial maneuver that launched Truth Social in the public market without ever having to reveal a coherent business plan to underwriters.

The order is surprising in a sense because, on its face, DOGE seems more limited than its original super ambitious pitch. This iteration seems more tightly centered on saving money through streamlining and modernizing the government’s massive and messy IT infrastructure. There are big savings to be had, but a handful of zeros short of trillions. As of yet, it’s uncertain whether Musk will become the DOGE administrator. It doesn’t seem big enough for him. (The first USDS director, Mikey Dickerson, jokingly posted on LinkedIn, “I’d like to congratulate Elon Musk on being promoted to my old job.”) But reportedly Musk pushed for this structure as a way to embed DOGE in the White House. I hear that inside the Executive Office Building, there are numerous pink Post-it notes claiming space even beyond USDS’s turf, including one such note on the former chief information officers’ enviable office. So maybe this could be a launch pad for a more sweeping effort that will eliminate whole agencies and change policies. (I was unable to get a White House representative to answer questions, which isn’t surprising considering that there are dozens of other orders that equally beg for explanation.)

One thing is clear—this ends United States Digital Service as it previously existed, and marks a new, and maybe perilous era for the USDS, which I have been enthusiastically covering since its inception. The 11-year-old agency sprang out of the high-tech rescue squad salvaging the mess that was Healthcare.gov, the hellish failure of a website that almost tanked the Affordable Care Act. That intrepid team of volunteers set the template for the agency: a small group of coders and designers who used internet-style techniques (cloud not mainframe; the nimble “agile” programming style instead of the outdated “waterfall” technique) to make government tech as nifty as the apps people use on their phones. Its soldiers, often leaving lucrative Silicon Valley jobs, were lured by the prospect of public service. They worked out of the agency’s funky brownstone headquarters on Jackson Place, just north of the White House. The USDS typically took on projects that were mired in centi-million contracts and never completed—delivering superior results within weeks. It would embed its employees in agencies that requested help, being careful to work collaboratively with the lifers in the IT departments. A typical project involved making DOD military medical records interoperable with the different systems used by the VA. The USDS became a darling of the Obama administration, a symbol of its affiliation with cool nerddom.

During the first Trump administration, deft maneuvering kept the USDS afloat—it was the rare Obama initiative that survived. Its second-in-command, Haley Van Dyck, cleverly got buy-in from Trump’s in-house fixer, Jared Kushner. When I went to meet Kushner for an off-the-record talk early in 2017, I ran into Van Dyck in the West Wing; she gave me a conspiratorial nod that things were looking up, at least for the moment. Nonetheless, the four Trump years became a balancing act in sharing the agency’s achievements while somehow staying under the radar. “At Disney amusement parks, they paint things that they want to be invisible with this certain color of green so that people don't notice it in passing,” one USDSer told me. “We specialized in painting ourselves that color of green.” When Covid hit, that became a feat in itself, as USDS worked closely with White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx on gathering statistics—some of which the administration wasn’t eager to publicize.

By the end of Trump’s term, the green paint was wearing thin. A source tells me that at one point a Trump political appointee noticed—not happily—that USDS was recruiting at tech conferences for lesbians and minorities, and asked why. The answer was that it was an effective way to find great product managers and designers. The appointee accepted that but asked if, instead of putting “Lesbians Who Tech” on the reimbursement line, could they just say LWT?

Under Biden no subterfuge was needed—the USDS thrived. But despite many months of effort, it could not convince Congress to give it permanent funding. With the return of Trump, and his promises to cut government spending, there was reason to think that USDS would evaporate. That’s why the DOGE move is kind of bittersweet—at least it now has more formal recognition and ostensibly will get a reliable budget line.

How will the integration work? The executive order mandates that in addition to normal duties the USDS director will also head a temporary organization “dedicated to advancing the President’s 18-month DOGE agenda.” That agenda is not clearly defined, but elsewhere the order speaks of improving the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, systems, and infrastructure. More specific is the mandate to embed four-person teams inside every agency to help realize the DOGE agenda. The order is very explicit that the agency must provide “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems.” Apparently Musk is obsessed with an unprecedented centralization of the data that makes the government go—or not. This somewhat adversarial stance is a dramatic shift from the old USDS MO of working collegially with the lifers inside the agencies.

Demanding all that data might be a good thing. Clare Martorana, who until last week was the nation’s chief information officer, says that while she saw many victories during her eight years in government tech, making big changes has been tough, in large part because of the difficulty of getting such vital data. “We have budget data that is incomprehensible,” she says. “The agency understands it, but they hide money in all kinds of places, so no one can really get a 100,000-foot view. How many open positions do they have? What are the skill sets? What are their top contracts? When are they renegotiating their most important contracts? How much do they spend on operations and maintenance versus R&D or innovation? You should know all these things.” If DOGE gets that information and uses it well, it could be transformational. “Through self-reporting, we spend $120 billion on IT,” she says “If we found all the hidden money and shadow IT, it's $200, $300, maybe $500 billion. We lose a lot of money on technology we buy stupidly, and we don't deliver services to the American public that they deserve.” So this Trump effort could be a great thing? “I’m trying very hard to be optimistic about it,” says Martorana. The USDS’s outgoing director, Mina Hsiang, is also trying to be upbeat. “I think there's a tremendous opportunity,” she says. “ I don't know what [DOGE] will do with it, but I hope that they listen to a lot of great folks who are there.”

On the other hand, those four-person teams could be a blueprint for mayhem. Up until now, USDS would send only engineers and designers into agencies, and their focus was to build things and hopefully set an example for the full-timers to do work like they do at Google or Amazon. The EO dictates only one engineer in a typical four-person team, joined by a lawyer (not known for building stuff), an HR person (known for firing people), and a “team lead” whose job description sounds like a political enforcer: “implementing the president’s DOGE Agenda.” I know that’s a dark view, but Elon Musk —and his new boss—are no strangers to clearing out a workplace. Maybe they’ll figure AI can do things better.

Whichever way it goes, the original Obama-era vibes of the USDS may forever be stilled—to be superseded by a different kind of idealist in MAGA garb. As one insider told me, “USDS leadership is pretty ill equipped to navigate the onslaught of these DOGE guys, and they are going to get the shit kicked out of them.” Though not perfect, the USDS has by dint of hard work, mad skills, and corny idealism, made a difference. Was there really a need to embed the DOGE experiment into an agency that was doing good? And what are the odds that on July 4, 2026, when the “temporary” DOGE experiment is due to end, the USDS will sunset as well? At best, the new initiative might help unravel the near intractable train wreck that is government IT. But at worst, the integration will be like a greedy brain worm wreaking havoc on its host.

[boltedfruit]

Employment Struggles

I'm going to do something shocking and use this as an actual blog post.

I am SO sick and tired of applying to jobs, only to be ignored completed, or even worse the interview is scheduled and then the role is filled before I can interview. Today the interview was cancelled a minute before the scheduled time. Then the person who would be interviewing me ignored me on email and phone.

I am mentally exhausted. I am broke all the time. I don't get unemployment because I've never been eligible for it. The only good thing about this is that I have full healthcare coverage and food stamps.

I am a medical assistant with experience, I am a certified professional medical coder with internship experience, I have experience in retail, yet I cannot even get a call back from McDonald's, let alone a good healthcare job.

I've considered becoming a behavioral health tech, but I just truly don't want to be hit/bitten at work. I also couldn't deal with the families of children disagreeing with a preset therapy plan while I'm physically stuck in their home. The other options I was looking at was security, or 911 dispatcher, but dispatch classes are few and far between into next year, and also expensive. And security can be dangerous.

At this point, being 30 and just defeated by how unsuccessful I am in life, I am considering going to a trade school. Like welding. Or automobile tech or something that is actually in demand. There is literally no other options for me and I'm literally five minutes outside of San Francisco. I am mildly considering an IT course, but tech is so unstable and unsafe while also being over saturated right now and I don't trust it. But then, you have to deal with stereotypical personalities in 'conservative' trade jobs too. The other risk is I spend time and money doing a trade school and then no one wants to hire me (like I've done twice now). I don't know what to do.

The trades I'm considering:

Electrician

Welder (part of machinist trade) (honestly this is most appealing to me)

Aircraft Maintenance Technology (Can't hurt with SFO next to me and their planes literally falling to pieces in the sky every week)

HVAC (still don't really understand what this job even is)

The guilt I'm feeling is that I am about to finish my BA in psychology next month, and I'm waiting to hear back from the two colleges I applied to for a Master's to become a therapist. If I get in to my top choice, that's $60k+ I'll need to fund. If I get into the state school, which is slim, that's likely covered by school loans, but I'll still want to make some kind of income for three years I'm in the program. If I don't get into either program, then my last choices are: work while getting med school pre-reqs done, or work while doing an online MFT program (which I really don't want to do an online only program but if it's accredited at the end of the day I don't care.) The online only school would also be $60k+ so I'd need to work regardless.

I'm feeling guilty too because I've never been the fanartist who can drop a new print and have thousands of followers want it. I can't make money that way. Commissions have always been my most lucrative offering as an artist, but it's often mentally very taxing. It's also unstable. I don't have a lot of followers to drum up a successful pays-my-rent-every-month Patreon, and with the way of algorithms and sites are these days, I likely won't ever. I'm not trying to complain for sympathy, but this is just how it's been for me.

I know it's stupid to feel guilty for things like this, but I just am in this nebulous space between being apparently unemployable while also not being unemployable enough to receive livable benefits while continuing job hunting.

So I guess I'm looking for opinions on trade professions. I'm trans, but I pass masc in public save for my voice really. I also am not the kind of person to wear pride pins or color my hair rainbow, which would draw attention that way. I'm not too concerned about mean people in a trade job, because honestly the rudest people I've worked with have been in healthcare anyway. And a trade job would mean no customer service positions/working with my hands, which requires little mental gymnastics.

Also pointless, but true, I keep thinking of Debbie in Shameless getting her welder certification after becoming a teen parent.

I guess the takeaway here is, I'm more willing to be hurt on the job by a machine mistake on my part than I am willing to be hurt by other people assaulting me (very real in healthcare jobs/security) while working.

What do you think?

[brookemedbil]

Opening the Earnings: How Much Do Medical Coding and Billing Professionals Really Make?

Unlocking the Earnings: How Much Do Medical Coding and Billing Professionals Really Make?

Are you considering a career in medical coding and billing? if so, one of your primary concerns might be the earning potential in this field. In this ⁢extensive ‌guide, we’ll explore how much​ medical ‍coding and billing professionals ​really make, factors influencing their‌ salaries, and tips to boost your earning potential. Read on to ​unlock the earnings potential of this promising profession!

Understanding ⁣Medical Coding and Billing

Medical coding and billing professionals play ⁤a ‌critical role in the healthcare system. Thay are responsible for translating healthcare services into universally accepted⁤ codes, facilitating accurate billing and reimbursement processes. Some of⁣ the responsibilities include:

Assigning codes⁢ for diagnoses⁢ and procedures.

Preparing and submitting insurance claims.

Verifying patient insurance coverage and handling disputes.

Maintaining patient confidentiality and‍ adhering to healthcare regulations.

Average Salary of Medical Coding ⁤and Billing Professionals

As of ‌2023,‌ the average salary for ‍medical coding and billing professionals varies substantially based on experience, certification, ‍and location.‍ Here’s⁢ a rapid overview⁤ of the salary landscape:

experience Level

Average Salary (USD)

Entry-Level (0-1 years)

$38,000 – ⁣$45,000

Mid-Level (2-5 years)

$45,000 – $60,000

Senior Level (5+ years)

$60,000 – $80,000

Factors Influencing Salary

Several⁣ factors influence how much medical ⁤coding and billing professionals can earn,including:

1. Certifications

Holding certifications from recognized organizations can significantly boost your salary. Common certifications include:

CPC (Certified Professional Coder)

CCS (Certified Coding specialist)

CHC (Certified Health Coach)

2. Geographic Location

Your location can dramatically affect your earning potential. here’s a brief comparison of average salaries across some states:

state

Average ‍Salary (USD)

California

$65,000

Texas

$50,000

New York

$70,000

Florida

$55,000

3.Type of Employer

the type of employer you choose can also influence​ your salary. Medical coders and billers can work in‌ various settings,including:

Hospitals

Private practice

Insurance companies

Freelance or ​remote positions

Benefits of a Medical Coding and Billing Career

Aside from ‌competitive salaries,there are numerous benefits to pursuing a career in medical coding and billing:

Job Security: With the healthcare industry constantly ​growing,job opportunities remain abundant.

Flexible ‍Work Options: Many coding positions offer the ability to work from home.

Career Growth: Opportunities for advancement into supervisory or managerial roles exist as you gain experience.

Practical Tips for Boosting Your⁣ Earnings

if you wont to ⁢maximize your earning ⁤potential in this field, here are practical tips:

obtain relevant certifications⁢ to enhance your resume.

Stay updated with industry changes and coding practices.

Network with professionals and attend workshops or webinars.

Consider freelancing or contract work to increase adaptability and income.

First-Hand Experience: A Day in the Life of a Medical Coder

To provide deeper insights, we spoke to Jessica, a Certified Professional Coder with ‌over 5⁢ years of experience. Here’s⁢ what ⁣she shared:

“Every day is different. I might start by reviewing medical records for accurate diagnosis‌ coding, than move on to preparing claims‌ for submission. It’s essential⁤ to stay organized and pay attention to detail, but I love how my work contributes to efficient patient care.”

– Jessica, CPC

Conclusion

Medical coding and billing is a rewarding career choice with a promising ​salary outlook. By understanding the influencing factors and taking proactive ‍steps, you can unlock your earning potential in this vital field. Whether you are just starting or looking to advance⁤ your ⁢career, the opportunities in medical coding and billing are plentiful. Start your ‍journey today,⁣ and you coudl find yourself enjoying the numerous benefits and job security that come with being a valued ‌healthcare professional.

https://medicalbillingcodingcourses.net/opening-the-earnings-how-much-do-medical-coding-and-billing-professionals-really-make/

[sahraeyll]

Open Your Future: Top Medical Billing and Coding Schools in Virginia

Unlock Your⁢ Future: Top⁢ Medical Billing and Coding Schools⁣ in Virginia

Are you eager too embark on a career in the ever-expanding ​healthcare field? Medical ‍billing and coding is a rewarding path that provides numerous opportunities for professional growth and stability. In Virginia, many schools⁢ offer specialized programs ⁣to prepare you for this essential role. This article will delve into the top medical billing and coding schools in Virginia, offering insights into programs, benefits, and much more.

Why Choose a career in Medical ⁣Billing and Coding?

Before we dive into the schools, let’s‌ take a ⁢moment to explore why medical billing and coding ⁣is such a valuable career choice:

High⁢ demand: with continual growth in⁣ the ​healthcare‍ industry, the‌ demand for skilled medical billers and coders remains strong.

Flexible Work⁣ Options: Many professionals in this field enjoy opportunities for remote work and flexible schedules.

Good salary: ⁣The average salary for medical billing and⁣ coding specialists is competitive,⁣ with potential for advancement.

Short Training Period: Many programs can‌ be⁣ completed in⁤ as little as ​8-12 months,getting you⁤ into‍ the workforce quickly.

Top medical Billing and Coding Schools in Virginia

Here’s a closer look at some of the best schools in Virginia offering medical billing and coding programs:

School ‌Name

Location

Programme Type

Duration

Certification

Virginia College

Richmond

Diploma

8 months

Yes

ECPI University

Virginia Beach

Associate‌ Degree

2 years

Yes

Southside Virginia community ⁣College

Keysville

Certificate

1 year

Yes

Northern ⁢Virginia Community College

Annandale

Associate degree

2 years

Yes

Old ⁢Dominion University

Norfolk

graduate Certificate

1 year

No

Program Highlights and Features

When ‌considering schools ⁢for medical billing and ​coding, look for certain features⁤ that enhance your educational experience:

Accreditation: Ensure the program is ‌accredited by a recognized body, which boosts your employability.

Hands-on Training: Look⁤ for programs offering practical training through internships or labs.

Adaptability: online options‍ allow you to balance education with work or personal commitments.

Support Services: Many schools ⁢offer career services⁤ to help with job placement after graduation.

Benefits of Attending a Medical Billing and Coding School

Enrolling in a medical billing and coding school⁣ offers various advantages that can significantly enhance your career ⁤prospects:

Extensive Knowledge: Gain‌ an‍ understanding ⁤of medical terminology, billing⁢ procedures, and healthcare compliance.

Networking Opportunities: Interact with industry professionals⁤ and peers,providing ‌valuable connections ​for job placements.

Skill ⁣Advancement: Acquire essential skills in data entry,coding systems (like ICD-10 and CPT),and billing software.

Certification ⁤Planning: Programs⁢ typically prepare you for national certification exams, which ⁢can increase job opportunities.

Real⁣ World Experience: Testimonials⁣ and Case Studies

To ⁤understand the‍ impact of these​ programs, ⁤consider these testimonials from students who have‍ successfully ⁢transitioned into the field:

Case Study:⁣ Sarah‍ Johnson

sarah​ enrolled ⁢in ​Virginia College’s diploma program. Within⁢ months, ‌she​ was working in⁣ a ⁤local hospital’s⁢ billing ‌department, saying,​ “The training‍ I received was directly applicable to my job, and I felt​ confident tackling coding challenges from ⁤day one.”

Case ‍Study: ​Michael ‌Thompson

Michael studied online at ECPI University while working part-time. ⁤He notes,“The flexibility of​ the online classes made it possible for me to learn while juggling work. I graduated and secured a ‌higher-paying position instantly.”

Practical ‌Tips for Prospective Students

Thinking ‌about enrolling in a medical billing and coding program? Here’s‍ some practical advice:

Research Programs: ​ Investigate various schools,compare curriculum,faculty qualifications,and ‌facilities.

Check Placement Rates: verify‍ the school’s ‍job placement⁢ rates⁢ to gauge how well ‌graduates ⁤fare in the job market.

Connect with⁢ Alumni: Reach out to former ‌students to gain ⁤firsthand insights about thier experiences and successes.

Stay Current: the healthcare field is dynamic. Consider continuing education courses after ⁣graduation to stay updated with⁣ industry changes.

Conclusion

pursuing a career in medical ‍billing and coding in Virginia opens doors to fulfilling job opportunities within the healthcare sector. By choosing ⁣one‍ of⁤ the top schools outlined ​in this article,you can lay a solid ⁢foundation for a⁤ successful career. Remember to take the⁤ time ⁤to‍ compare programs, explore your options, and choose the path that aligns with your professional goals. Start your journey today—unlock ‍your future in medical billing and coding!

https://medicalbillingcertificationprograms.org/open-your-future-top-medical-billing-and-coding-schools-in-virginia/

[amymedbiller]

Open Your Future: Top Online Medical Coding Classes to Jumpstart Your Career in Healthcare

unlock Your Future: ⁣top Online medical coding Classes to Jumpstart Your Career in Healthcare

The ⁤healthcare industry is‌ flourishing, ‌and one of ‍the most promising ‍career paths is medical coding. ​As a crucial part of the healthcare ​system, medical coders ensure that‌ all patient records‍ are accurately ‍classified and paid ⁢for. If⁢ you’re looking⁤ to kickstart ⁣your career in this field, ⁣enrolling in online medical coding classes is a smart move.⁣ In this article, we’ll⁤ explore ⁤the top online medical coding classes ‍available, their benefits,‌ and practical tips to help you ‌succeed in this ⁢rewarding⁤ profession.

Why Pursue a Career in Medical Coding?

Before diving into the⁢ best online medical‍ coding classes, let’s discuss why this career choice could be the right fit for you:

High⁣ Demand: Medical coders are in high‍ demand due to the growing healthcare industry.

Flexible⁢ Work Habitat: ⁣ Many medical coders have the option to work remotely.

Competitive Salary: Medical coding offers competitive salaries, with opportunities for‌ advancement.

Job Stability: ‍With​ the expansion of the healthcare sector, job ​stability is a⁣ important ⁢benefit.

Top Online medical‍ Coding Classes

Here’s a breakdown of some of ⁤the best online medical coding classes available:

Course Name

provider

Duration

Certification Offered

Price

Medical Coding Certificate Program

Coursera

6⁢ months

Professional Certificate

$39/month

Certified Professional ⁢Coder‌ (CPC)

AAPC

4-5 months

CPC Certification

$1,499

Medical Coding Basics

edX

8 weeks

Verified certificate

$199

Fundamentals of medical Coding

Udacity

3 months

Completion Certificate

$399

Billing and ⁤Coding Specialist

Allied Health Schools

9 months

Diploma

$1,399

Benefits of Online Medical Coding ⁤Classes

Taking online medical coding classes comes with a ‌plethora of benefits. Here are the notable advantages:

Convenience: Study at your own pace and on ‌your own ‍schedule.

Wide Range of Resources: ​ Access to various online materials such as ⁢videos, quizzes, and⁤ forums.

Networking Opportunities: Engage with​ other ​students ⁢and professionals through online platforms.

Cost-effective: Online programs often cost less than conventional on-campus⁤ classes.

Practical tips for Success‍ in Medical Coding

Success in medical coding⁣ requires more than ⁤just completing ⁢a class. Here are some‌ practical tips to ‍ensure⁢ you excel:

Stay Updated: Regulations ‌and codes change ‍frequently. Subscribe to‍ relevant publications and complete CEUs.

Practice: Use coding ‌software or apps​ to practice real-life coding scenarios.

Networking: Join coding forums, professional networks,⁤ and attend workshops.

Seek Certification: Certifications such as CPC can increase job prospects and salary potential.

First-Hand Experience: A ⁢Student’s Journey

To shed light on the⁢ effectiveness of ⁢online medical coding ‍classes,here’s ​a‌ brief account ⁤from Sarah,a certified medical⁣ coder:

“I enrolled in an online medical coding program while working full-time.The flexible schedule was ‌a ⁤lifesaver. I learned at my own⁣ pace, completing modules in the evenings and weekends. The course equipped me with not ⁤just‍ coding skills, but​ also insight into billing ⁣and insurance processes. Upon completing my certification, I​ quickly landed a job at a⁤ local healthcare provider, and ​now I enjoy a fulfilling career that makes⁢ a difference every day.”

Case ‌Studies: Success Stories from Online Medical Coders

Here are a few success stories of individuals who transformed their careers through ‌online⁣ medical ‍coding classes:

Michael ⁤Johnson: Transitioned from retail ⁢to medical coding within six months​ of enrolling in an online program,now earns‌ a ⁣six-figure salary.

Emma ⁤watson: After completing her medical coding certification, ⁤she⁢ found a remote position that allows her more time for family.

David Lee: After​ being laid off, David pursued online ⁢medical​ coding classes ⁤and successfully switched‍ careers, landing a job in ⁢a hospital within weeks.

Conclusion: Your Path to a Rewarding Career

Online ​medical coding‌ classes offer a fantastic possibility to jumpstart your⁢ career in the flourishing⁤ healthcare sector. With the proper training, certification, and practical experience, ⁤you can⁢ unlock a‍ future filled with potential. Start your journey⁤ today by ​exploring the top classes mentioned above, and take the first step towards‌ achieving your ​career goals in medical coding.

https://schoolsformedicalbilling.org/open-your-future-top-online-medical-coding-classes-to-jumpstart-your-career-in-healthcare/

[ivarinleatherpants]

My Real Life job is working in medical admin. Right now I'm a coder, but I started at my current hospital doing prior authorizations. I worked with UHC, and every other insurance, every day. I also talked a lot with people in other parts of the patient finances group.

It is a constant, unending battle to get things paid. Hospitals spend almost as much just on administrative staff as they do on providing medical care. Insurances continue to raise the administrative burden for hospitals to be paid with no restrictions. Profit margins are small with commercial insurance, but it's usually in the negatives for Medicaid, Medicare, and VA patients. So you do this weird, ceremonial dance every year where you make up a number 3x the amount Medicare would pay, just so you can negotiate down to a number that allows you to provide this service AND make enough profit to balance out all of the services you're providing at a cost.

And then you still have to follow an ever revolving set of requirements to prove that their patients get to have this or that surgery. Sometimes, you don't find out until claims start getting denied that a policy was changed. Every hospital in Western Washington is closing specialty services that don't make a profit, because they've all been functioning at a deficit for at least 5 years.

We all get cynical after running headlong into a career with stars in your eyes and assurance that you'll be able to make a difference, only to find out you're nothing. You're not even a cog in the wheel. You're a manager and you can't DO anything because everyone is chasing their tails to figure out how to afford providing healthcare while also... providing healthcare.

And then the fucking Catholic Church buys you out because you can't afford not to. Promises are made all over, and slowly picked away until 4 years later your employee benefits are changed to "align with the rest of the ministry," and you no longer have coverage for birth control except for what is covered by a Federal mandate. A few years ago that would mean Jack shit, but it doesn't.

“One medical doctor, whose identity the Daily Beast confirmed, commented with sympathy for Thompson’s family and said the killer should be charged with murder, but then wondered about the damage the CEO had done. “I cannot even guess how many person-years UHC has taken from patients and their families through denials,” they wrote. “It has to be on the order of millions. His death won’t make that better, but it’s hard for me to sympathize when so many people have suffered because of his company.” “What has bothered me the most is people that put «fiduciary responsibility» (eg profits) above human lives, none more so than this company as run by him,“ wrote another medical doctor, who also spoke to the Daily Beast to confirm their identity. “When other’s human lives are deemed worthless, it is not surprising to have others view your life of no value as well.””

— Moderators Delete Reddit Thread as Doctors Torch Dead UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

[pettyrevenge-base]

IT manager made my life a misery so we auto-insulted him hundreds of times a day.

TL;DR at bottom

This happened a few years ago. And by few I mean a lot. I was student in the mid 80's and I got a job for the summer working for a major electronics company; it was low skill boring grunt work but it was a foot in the door and paid good money.

I worked in the IT department next to a very noisy room filled with very wide dot matrix printers that buzzed and chattered all day long. It was the central printer room for the VAX system that we used back then. One of my jobs was to take the huge fan-fold printout (each stack was about 2x1 feet and about a foot high) and separate it into individual print jobs, lay them out on a table for people to pick up and also to refill the printer with new paper. The noise drove me nuts so I closed the door. The IT manager found out and insisted that the door stay open so that I could hear when a printer was out of paper, the printer gave out a series of beeps when the paper had run out. Lets just call him Dick because a) his name was Richard and b) he really was a Dick. A real petty tyrant.

In a nearby room was Bob. Bob was an an odd guy, he was an absolute hippy, a relic from the 60s. Bob was a slacker, he appeared to do the minimum work necessary to stay employed but he was also a genius, a hobby electronics experimenter, proper old-school coder (COBOL and FORTRAN), radio amateur, he wrote for electronics magazines, designed and built his own computers, radios and hifi gear, he would happily fix any electronics you brought him and refused payment and he was the go-to person for almost anyone in the company with a technical problem. The odder the problem the better he liked it. Senior engineers would come down to Bob with a question and go away with an answer, sometimes he was seconded to a project to consult and on more than one occasion co-authored a technical paper and was named on a patent or two. Most of the time Bob didn't want any recognition or fuss but usually you got to hear through the grapevine that it was his work. He liked his little room and liked to be his own boss.

I liked Bob, he was a genuinely nice guy, he had a lot of power in the company through a lot of favours but he never wielded it. He was always helpful to anyone who asked from MD to summer students like me, in fact he really liked students and often mentored us when we had a problem or just taught us how to work the system.

I told Bob about the noise in passing. Bob went away and designed a remote Out Of Paper system that would indicate a paper outage on a light-board where I sat. He didn't have to but Bob liked a problem to work on. Dick rejected it out of hand. I resigned myself to a summer of noise but Bob just quietly turned to a new solution.

Bob proposed an improvement to the printing system to Dick.  The print header was a line of hash symbols, the print job name, the user name of the person who printed it and another line of hash symbols. Sometimes you could pick up on the Hash symbols sometimes not. It was hit or miss.

Bob had experimented with a mix of text and ASCII block characters and came up with a distinctive 'song' that the printers could make by printing apparent gibberish. Based on his amateur radio experience he theorised that even someone untutored in Morse can recognise a Morse code phrase very quickly and the ear picks up on the phrase even when not actively listening and so someone could pick up on a distinctive tune or rhythm. He ran a test and it worked. Dick could see the benefits and so authorised Bob to code it into the standard print footer.

In production I could hear the end of every print job as the printer changed it's random screeching buzz to the distinctive sounds and I pulled them off the printer as they finished instead of the finished paper stack speeding up the print job process and reducing the wait time for those waiting on the job. Dick was nominated for an innovation award (about £200 bonus) and accepted without acknowledging Bob. Bob didn't care and neither did I, after my ear had tuned in Bob gave me a Morse alphabet and just smiled at me. He had coded symbols for 2 lines at the end of the print that sounded like "FUKDIK" in morse code. It didn't reduce the noise but it made it bearable that every print job was an insult. It also made me happy that there were a few radio amateurs in the company who all know Morse they all knew Bob so I guess he told them. When they came to the print pick up point you could see some of them catch the phrase and smile. Sometimes it the petty revenges that mean the most.

I rejoined the company after I graduated 3 years later. Bob had medically retired after a massive heart attack and died shortly after, Dick had moved on and we were beginning to move to the massive computing power of desktop 386 pcs with local printers instead of the VAX system but I went down to the print room one day to hear "FUKDIK" over and over.

It made me so so happy. I may have shed a little tear at that moment in memory of Bob.

TL;DR

I worked next to a noisy printer room, the manager would not allow me to close the door or use noise reducing measures so a colleague coded an insult to the manager in the sound of the end of print block.

Source: reddit.com/r/pettyrevenge

[darkdevasofdestruction]

Primum Non Nocere ~ Gregory House x Katrina Black

This may or may not be a personal fic I make for myself, that everyone is welcome to read in case they miss House or sth, so yeah, enjoy the clown fiesta.

There are many words that can describe Doctor Gregory House, all of them ranging from “Brilliant Doctor” to “The Biggest Asshole”...However, there is one person who ever called him “Sweet”, and each time, she got called insane.

Even Stacy, who dated him for so long, looked at her as if she suddenly became a chimera or something, which speaks volumes for his character as a whole.

It’s been 15 years since Katrina moved to America, and 15 years since she begged Lisa Cuddy to allow her to practice Medicine and learn directly from the hospital itself, even though she barely finished highschool and was beginning Medicine University.

Lisa had no reason to accept her, but she was much too sweet and convincing, doing everything asked, from cleaning, to nursing, helping her with management stuff, and then, as years passed, she started clinic duty and steadily, but fast-paced, she achieved her dream of becoming a successful cardiologist, going as far as becoming the new head of the department, since the old one retired.

Just as expected, she became friends with Lisa, James and Greg very easily, and each of them treated her in their own way - As her mother, as her confidant...And as her Mentor, of sorts - As Gregory House was the harshest and biggest jerk in the world, but not even the coldest man alive could resist her weirdly innocent charm.

She was the one to remember the gruff man’s every birthday and give him gifts she made herself - Nothing big, but always meaningful, like a winter scarf, or cute little decorations, engraved medical things and so one - And of course, on every Christmas, apart from gifts, she would bring him marshmallow hot chocolate and other festive decorations for his office, so he won’t feel lonely or bad.

Sometimes he didn’t even realise it, but every time he needed a proper diagnostic opinion, or his interns screwed up, he’d page her, not exactly caring if she was busy with clinic work or with an important surgery, and he’d make fun of her for rushing for “No reason”.

Life is definitely difficult for a shy, young foreigner, all alone in the world, but somehow, with the help of this few people, she managed to find something that she lacked her whole childhood - A true “Family” and a place to call “Home”.

But for Gregory House, this woman, Katrina Black, has always been an enigma he couldn’t deduct - The greatest mystery that crossed his path - He wanted to know her, to understand her, to learn about her and her pain and maybe, for once, he won’t feel as miserable.

The past 5 years especially, after Stacy left him and he ultimately had to live in pain, addicted to pain killers, and while he got more and more bitter, he also began to appreciate, at least in his heart, the unconditional kindness and attention he receives from her

And so, here we are, 15 years after the moment that changed everything in their lives...

“It’s not inflammatory process. It’s not a clot, because Chase’s angio says so. And it’s not cancer, because her tush is perfect. Anybody else got an Aunt Elyssa with weird stuff?” House limped into his office, looking at the three subordinates that were sitting around aimlessly. “...Maybe it’s worth looking into-” Cameron began, but was quickly cut off by the elder one, who looked at the angio once again. “I though you said Carly’s angio was clean.” Gregory blinked, putting both angiograms on the board for a better peripheral view. “It WAS clean.” the Aussie insisted again. “You guys see the problem here?” House asked in his usual over the top way. “There’s no indication of any abnormalities, no lesions, no spurs, no mastis-” Foreman got up to get a better look at the pictures better. “Well, if you guys don’t know, how about I call for the help of our lovely foreigner? I bet she’s gonna be angry for getting her out of whatever surgery she has, but...It’s in the name of science, after all!” he gave a mocking smirk at the trio as he hit CodeRed on the pager.

As expected, it didn’t take long for the girl to arrive, despite being in full surgical outfit, blood still on her gloves and her scrub cover, panting from having to run all the way there.

“What happened?! Are you okay?!” she tried to speak, despite barely being able to catch her breath. “Nothing really. Nothing that would result in the immediate death of a patient, clearly, and as you can see, I’m perfectly fine as well. Why ever would you hurry up like that out of a surgery?” Gregory fooled around, watching the crestfallen expression on her face, as she took off her gloves and scrub covers, revealing the cute and childish green scrub that had foxes on the top. It was her signature style, really - Always wearing the cutest, most childish scrubs, with various animals or flowers, and she was the only one who did that, despite her age, and didn’t care about anyone’s opinions. In fact, others kinda found it pretty nice too, almost giving off a more light and hopeful approach to a hospital. “So...Let me get this straight...I was in the middle of an open heart surgery...And you paged me while I was stitching it back together...With a code red, nonetheless...And I put my subordinate to cover for me, thinking that something happened to you or whatever patient you have...And instead, I find you here with no problem, loitering around with the three stoogies - No offense -...Having a party. Woaw, Greg, be careful, you are overshadowing yourself with every passing day.” Katrina groaned, throwing in the bin the discardable surgery objects and  hopped on his desk, crossing her legs together nonchalantly. “Awwww, you love me, don’t you?” he retorted in a fake sweet tone, making the girl shake her head and chuckle. “Yeah, of course, who doesn’t?” she could barely keep herself from grinning at his silly self. “So what’s the real problem? What did they do?” “We are trying to see what’s wrong with Carly’s angiogram, and I figured perhaps the gorgeous eyes of an exotic, successful, intelligent woman, would be able to see the problem of another successful and intelligent woman.” he tried to speak with more honey than he ever did, just for the laughs. “The girl kissed by fire should dye her hair again. Also...It came to my understanding that most people have...A left and a right leg, right? Why does the angio have two left feet?” she asked, taking her hair out of the ponytail and messing it around. “Et voila! Without even knowing the patient’s problems properly, you saw the wrong when these guys didn’t. See, I told you the foreigner would get it faster than you.” House limped back to pat her head, looking at the three with judgement. “So...Who screwed up something so basic? I wouldn’t have expected someone that works under you to do such a stupid mistake -... No, wait, it was Chase, wasn’t it?” Kat smirked, looking at the Aussie with a playful glint in her eyes. “Wh-What?! Why did you think it was me?!” Chase looked at her with revolt. “Are you trying to tell me it WASN’T you?” she pressed on, watching him blink and get back in his chair. “How did you know?” Greg challenged her, only to see her shrug. “He seems like the only one to screw up something like this because he was trying to charm the pants off some nurse.” she spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You are absolutely correct! Oh, and, stop messing with your hair, you’re leaving strands everywhere.” he grabbed her wrists, and just for a split second, his beautiful icy blue eyes peered into her fawn-like green ones. “Well...Every fire has cinders and ambers, doesn’t it. Now that you basically dragged me out of the surgery room, you have to keep me around for the case. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind me purrrowling around, would you?” she joked around, just as Chase got up, staring at the angios he screwed up in complete disbelief. “Yeah. Sure. You do that. At least I’ll have someone competent around.” he nodded his head, a bit awkwardly. “That’s impossible! It can’t be - “ Chase tried to defend himself, despite having no excuse. “Or maybe it was Jenny. How come some resident signed this radiology report? Were you even in the room?” House reprimanded the blond doctor. “I’ll redo her angio- “ Chase tried to defend himself, but was quickly shut down by his superior. “You’ll do nothing!” an angry House was a scary House, which made the room atmosphere tense as hell. “Eric, go do the angiogram, please.” Kat muttered, simplifying the problem. “...I can’t believe I did that.” Chase turned around to look at his fuck up, making the red haired girl sigh. “That’s what happens when you think with the wrong head at the wrong time.” with that, she flapped her hand to dismiss both of them, dragging House to sit down, worrying about his leg. “I am surrounded by idiots.” he dragged a hand down his face in anger. “Yeah, I know what you mean...But they are not stupid, in the long run. Just...Distracted sometimes...At the wrong times, sure, but...They have redeeming qualities too.” she tried to defend them a bit, while also calm him down, knowing very well that nobody can think straight while angry. “Yeah, I know. But neither you, nor I, have ever been distracted by trivial things like this. Speaks volumes about someone’s priorities.” he retorted just as tauntingly as before. “Well...He’s still young...And he knows he’s attractive for most people...I don’t know. I can’t really defend him for this one.” she looked down, sighing. “Then don’t. It’s not your job to defend everyone or try to make me feel better. Look at you. You’re young, beautiful and smart, but not once did I see you being distracted by some boy. Chase has no excuse.” he cut her off, making her smile in understanding, nodding blankly. “Yeah...But you’re the only one who sees me that way. You...And James and Lisa...You’re the only ones that I trust to tell me the truth and be genuine with me...And you’re the only ones who talk to me or hang around me without wanting something out of me. Sometimes things are more complicated than you see at the surface.” her voice became softer, almost melancholic, something that was completely out of character for her, or at least, that’s what he thought.

House was about to open his mouth and interrogate her, in his own weird way, only for his office room to get opened and have Vogler and Cuddy walk right through. With an ever so quiet curse from the girl, she bit her lip and raised her head, trying not to look worried or intimidated.

“What a pleasant coincidence, finding both of you here. I see neither of you conformed to the rules yet. Are you trying to have an anarchy together? Not wearing proper clothing?” Vogler look down at the two of them, which made House blink in confusion at the girl sitting on his desk. “Well, I know I don’t wear a coat ‘cause it’s itchy and tacky...But as far as I’m aware, if my eyes haven’t gone wild from the LSD, Katrina’s wearing a medical scrub.” the man started playing with his cane, only to see the girl shoot him a warning look, mouthing for him to shut up. “Animal scrubs are unprofessional. Nobody in the hospital wears them, and there is no benefit to them.” the businessman refuted with ease. “The benefit is that I make them myself, they are comfy, and people find them nice to look at. My patients feel calmer and more reassured seeing cute things. It makes them see past their health issues, even by a few seconds. And children and teenagers especially love it.” the girl explained herself calmly, before biting her lip and speaking a bit lower. “I’d recommend you wear a cute scrub too, I’m sure they are more comfy than your business suits. Maybe you’ll lighten up and realise we are in a hospital and we work with people, not with documents and money.”  “Haha, you’re pretty funny. Now I see why the two of you are always together. You have a knack for breaking the rules. Or, better said, you completely disregard the rules as if they don’t exist at all for you.” Vogler’s voice seemed to get darker and more threatening. “It’s just a coat and a scrub. House works from his office, and he wears suits, I don’t see how that’s a problem, the same as my scrubs, there’s no rule anywhere saying I am strictly forbidden from wearing cute tops. Do you really feel your authority so undermined by two people in this huge hospital wearing different things, despite not getting in the way of their pristine perfect work? Or perhaps you feel some kind of weird...Inferiority complex that you must hide and keep in check by walking all over everyone as if we are doormats?” Katrina spoke without even looking at anyone, only staring ahead, coincidently, at the messed up angiograms, and for a few seconds, she could almost feel her own legs getting screwed up from the malicious vibe emanating from the businessman. “Katrina...” Lisa brought her out from her trance, sharing a look of worry together, knowing very well they’re screwed either way. “It’s not about what rules are out there or not. It’s about the rules that I make, and making sure you are team players. If you are not, then...I believe we won’t be able to cooperate for much longer. Especially if Dr. Cuddy isn’t able to keep you in control.” Vogler threatened, before turning away and leaving, while Lisa gave her a pitiful look, following behind him. “...Fantastic day, isn’t it?” Katrina put her hands on her face, sighing in frustration. “Do you really make your own scrubs?” Greg asked, making her turn her head to look at him, before nodding. “Yeah. Want one? I can make you a pink one with lots of flowers and smiley faces.” she joked half-heartedly, which made him realise the annoying businessman was affecting her more than him. “Don’t be ridiculous.” he shook his head, getting up, patting her head. “What else do I have left after what just happened.” she stretched, cracking her fingers and spine, as she hopped off the desk, just as her pager started ringing. “Good luck with your patient, Greg. I have to go. If anything happens, page me...But no code red during surgery this time, please.” she gave him a tender smile, leaving the room, making him look after her.

What was it about her today that made her seem off? It has to be only Vogler, right? What else could it be.  The patient, however, has many many symptoms, and no actual disease yet. Fascinating!

As time passed and he got to treat his patient, and even lied to the transplant committee so Carly would get a new heart, and nobody, except for Wilson and Black, who were there, knew about that felony he committed.

On the other hand, during this time, Katrina has been working day and night with barely any rest, other than the tons of coffee she had to down to keep herself awake. There was something very uplifting about overworking, and no, not only your heart rate.

“Hey, Kat.” Wilson raised his hand up to salute his friend, which made her stop in front of him, albeit a bit spazzic like a meerkat, but nothing too out of the ordinary. “Hey, James, how are you?” she smiled at him, walking slowly together to whatever place he was heading to. “Pretty good. Wanted to grab lunch, how about you?” he asked politely, putting his hands in his coat pockets. “It’s lunch already? How time flies...I forgot to eat again. Too bad.” she chuckled sheepishly, grinning at him. “Anyway, have a great meal, I have a surgery to prep for.”  “You should still eat something, you can’t live on coffee alone.” James muttered with concern. “Thank you for your concern, James, I appreciate it. I have to hurry now, eat for me too.” she chuckled, stopping in her tracks, waving him goodbye. “Wait, hold up, I wanted to ask you something.” he stepped closer to her, bending a bit so he could speak without anyone lese hearing. “Do you know what House lied about? At the committee? I know he lied, but I don’t know what about.” he asked, making the girl sigh and shake her head. “No, sorry, I don’t know. If you want, I can ask him when I’m done with the surgery.” she suggested, seemingly interested herself. “If he tells you, that would be great. He seemed to stop himself from telling me because I am a member of both the board and the transplant committee...Which you are as well. Good luck.” he points out, both curious and frustrated with his friend. “Well that’s interesting...Okay, you’ve got me hooked, I’ll see what I can do and I’ll tell you as soon as I find out. Laters.” Kat winked at him, rushing to do the surgery.

However, she didn’t have to do much work, for when she was almost done with the surgery, House himself made his way into the room, examining her working, before speaking.

“How would you fancy dinner tonight?” he asked, which made her look at him, raising her eyebrow in confusion. “Did you talk to James by chance?” she questioned right back, doing the finishing touches. “Yeah, how’d you know?” he asked jokingly. “Oh, you know...Just the usual thing of me forgetting to take care of myself. So, where do we go?” she asked, finishing the sewing and turning around to exit the room. “My home. We get take out, fall asleep since it’s already past midnight...I came with the motorcycle, I even brought your cat helmet, come on, I’m hungry, don’t question so much.” he put his arm around her shoulder, bringing her to the parking spot. “No room to complain much, is there? Is it really past midnight? I feel like I just talked with James a little ago...” she muttered, taking the helmet and putting it on. “Time flies fast when you’re having fun, they say.” House pointed out, starting the engine.

For the rest of the night - Or early morning rather - They finished eating and were relaxing by the piano, playing “My Way” by Frank Sinatra and other fun, classical, beautiful songs, humming the lyrics and reveling in the fact that there were no cases for a while, and no worries, at least for what Vogler is worth.

“Say, mind if I ask you something?” Kat asked, turning her head to look at him. “Yes, a hooker came by just yesterday, how did you know?” he gasped dramatically, looking right back at her. “Oh, just a lucky guess. However, my question was going to point more towards the patient you just had, who needed a heart transplant. I and James were curious about your little white lie.” she chuckled at his jokes, which made him blink at her and frown. “Sorry, doctor-patient confidentiality makes me unable to say anything. As well as ethics. Those are very important rules that everyone must follow for a better place to live in, don’t you think?” she never really understood why, but those back and forth playful banters always made her laugh. “Oh yes, of course...Ethics...How could I possible forget about Ethics? Perhaps you have a dictionary so I can look it up once in a while. And now, for the real reason...I can assume it was something psychological? Some mental illness that nobody was supposed to know about?” she smirked right back at him, only for him to look at her for a brief few seconds and nod abruptly. “Bulimia and self-harm.” Greg answered, which made the girl smile sadly. “Figured it would be something like this...Many women like her have self-issues and they get desperate and lonely to the point where they find the only relief from stress and self-hatred in overworking and terrible coping mechanisms. Buuuut she proved to you she wanted to live, and you fought for her and saved her. That’s amazing. You...You are amazing, you know that, don’t you?” she praised him, a soft smile on her face of something that may or may not resemble admiration. “Where are you getting at with that? It’s almost like you’re praising her...For something.” his voice lowered a bit, almost as if he was interrogating her. “Praise is a big word...Although she is a great woman, without a doubt. I was actually praising you, above all else...And...I was just wondering...Would you...Would you do the same for me? Should I have been in the same position as she was.” she asked, as a matter of fact, which made the other doctor raise his eyebrow at her. “Why would you be asking something like that?” it was clear that by now, the atmosphere got a little bit tense, until she started randomly playing “Carol of the Bells”, such a beautiful, uplifting Christmas song, yet House could almost smell the nostalgic undertones it had. “You are being very weird, Katrina.” “Oh, come on, lighten up, it was only to satisfy my scientific curiosities. Christmas is coming, I haven’t slept in two days, I’ve been drinking so much coffee that I think I’ve transcended into another universe altogether...And everyone is weird in their own way, you can’t tell me otherwise. Now come on, answer me, don’t be such a killjoy.” she grinned, nudging him playfully with her shoulder as she got closer to him, trying to get him to stop thinking it was some greater problem. “...No.” he answered solemnly, which made the girl blink and tilt her head to the side like a confused puppy. “No...You won’t do the same for me, or No...You won’t answer?” Kat asked softly, hoping to get a straight answer out of him, but that’s never the case with House. “Figure that out when you go to sleep tonight. Good night, Kat.” Greg said, getting up from the piano and making his way to his dormitory, leaving the girl alone.

Sighing, she continued to play “Summertime” from Gershwin to calm herself down, before getting up herself and walking all the way to her home, albeit not a long walk, yet still relaxing thanks to the cold outside that relaxed her.

The next day, Katrina walked in around the clinic with her big Triple Espresso Caramel Latte cup, going around to do her clinic duty, only to get paged by House once again, most likely to help with another diagnostic, or point out some obvious idiocy one of his subordinates has done.

On the way there, she spotted the big bad wolf, so she hid behind numerous people and quickly ran up the emergency stairs to escape her fate, until she got to the diagnostician’s office, catching her breath.

“Why did you run? There was no code red this time.” he asked, wagging his cane around. “Yeah, well, code V from Vendetta spotted me, so I had to pretend I didn’t see him. The emergency stairs are a blessing, sometimes.” she chuckled, leaning, on the glass wall, taking big sips from her coffee. “Have you thought about what I said last night?” he asked, and by then, the eyes of the onlookers seemed to go back and forth between those two. “I would have...But as you can see, I didn’t exactly sleep last night. Again.” she gave him a sarcastic, exaggerated grin. “Yeah, I can see that. You look dreadful. Do you make it your personal mission to go in the Record book for the idiot who refused to sleep the longest?” he limped in front of her, making her sigh and roll her eyes. “It wasn’t for lack of trying, okay? I go to bed, it takes hours to fall asleep, and when I do, I have nightmares and sleep paralysis, I wake up startled and restless, and there is that, I can’t fall asleep back again because of overwhelming anxiety. Are you happy with my answer?” she looked up at him with an almost annoyed look in her exhausted eyes. “...Nope.” House dragged his answer a bit, as if he was thinking over some rationalisation of her behaviour. “Are you taking pills?” he asked again, popping a Vicodin pill. “Uh...Should I?” she muttered, blinking questioningly at him. “Maybe. If you don’t already. I’m not entirely sure if you are or not, unless you tell me.” he pointed out as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Or maybe I need a long vacation in the Maldives. Or to go back home in Europe. Who knows, maybe sleeping in the Sun, on a beach chair, hearing the ocean waves would prove to be a great way to fall asleep and actually...You know...Sleep!” she shrugged and turned around to leave, but he hooked the semi-circle part of his cane around her neck, bringing her back, making her yelp in shock. “Are you sure you’re alright? You’ve been acting off recently.” he limped in front of her, blocking the exit. “Ah, yes, of course. An anomaly in an otherwise boring human who is bound by routines. How could I forget how much you love solving these anomalies? But, you see, I’m not your patient, so I have to ask you to refrain from trying to diagnose me, and return to whatever your guy has.” she tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t budge, which only made her sigh in aggravation. “I think...You are hiding something.” House pushed her with his cane just enough to look at her better.  “Yeah, you’ve got me. Something completely unexpected...Like...Vogler giving me a hard time and threatening to fire me, despite being the head of the Cardiology department...And Christmas is approaching and I’m as lonely as always...Oh, and, how could I forget, my family wants to visit. My family. Who hasn’t contacted me in like 15 years. Suddenly wants to visit me. I’m SURE they want to have a very nice, lovely chat with me. Now that you know how miserable my days have been lately, can I go back to being miserable in my own department, where I can actually do something productive with my time?” it wasn’t often when she got so worked up, but it was clear she was stressed out and needed some way to vent or relax. “Don’t you want to know the answer to your question?” he looked down for a few seconds, before looking in her eyes, noticing how her eyes were puffy and droopy, and her bottom lip was quivering lightly. “...I don’t know.” she muttered, moving past him and going back to the clinic to do her job as she’s supposed to.

Of course, Vogle continued to be a problem for everyone, Christmas passed and she was just as lonely as every other year, so she drunk herself to sleep while listening to old school songs from her native country, because no matter how silly they were, they still made her feel happy and nostalgic.

Things continued to go array for everyone in the hospital, so bad and so hard that the evil businessman called for a board meeting to fire House, which caused a shit ton of problems for everyone, especially Kat, Wilson and Cuddy...But the only ones who refused were the first two, which escalated to another meeting right then to fire them...On her own birthday, barely a week and a half after Christmas.

“Doctor Wilson, Doctor Black. I was hoping you were gonna miss this one.” Vogler said as soon as the two entered the office room and sat on their chairs next to each other. “A man is the sum of his actions. Here are a few of Dr. House’s. He violated a D.N.R. and was charged with assault. He brought a termite into the O.R. and spat on a surgeon. He accepted a Corvette from a patient who was a known member of the New Jersey Mafia.” the businessman began, only to get stopped by one of the surgeons. “Ed, look-” he tried to reason, but was harshly cut off. “Edward.” Vogler looked sharply at him. “Edward. You look at anyone’s career, you can find things that are-” the surgeon began to speak again, only to get quickly shut down. “These are the last 3 months! He’s personally had more complaints filed against him than any department in this hospital.” Vogler continued, and James tried to reason this time. “Okay. He’s screwed-up. He’s miserable. And he should probably re-read the ethics code, but it works for him. He’s saved hundreds of lives.” Wilson explained, but it was clear Vogler was on a war path. “He is a drug addict who flaunts his addiction and refuses to get treatment! He is a disgrace and an embarrassment to this hospital.” this statement made the red haired girl groan in annoyance and let herself fall back on the chair. “No, he’s not a drug addict, that’s what YOU want to see. How would you feel if your leg was in excruciating pain because of a surgery choice you had NO choice over, and yet, you still had to work, save lives, and think properly? House MAY look like he’s some kind of insane jerk, but he is known all over America for being THE best diagnostician and was able to save people that otherwise, in the hand of ordinary doctors, would have died. Oh, and, those complaints have always been revoked or solved once the patient...You know...LIVED! You just want him fired ‘cause he’s not being your obedient lap dog. If you are so brave to speak ill of a person when he’s not around, why don’t you also have the guts to speak the truth?” she leaned forward to glare at her enemy, as Wilson put his hand over hers, trying to calm her down. “Says the one who’s always by his side, helping him indulge in his nefarious medical fantasies. Let’s keep this simple. Either he goes, or I go.” Vogler spoke, making Katrina rest her chin on her hand, watching him closely. “You shouldn’t personalise this.” Lisa tried to reason, but this guy was over the limits. “And by I, I mean my hundred million dollars. How’s that for personalising?” he started at poor Lisa, who was in a huge dilemma. “Who knew adults could be so petty? You give us money for a reason, and then you threaten to take it away because one doctor, the only one who cares about his patients more than anything, does his job as he is supposed to. Very mature.” Kat sneered at him, rolling her eyes at him. “Gregory House is a symbol of everything wrong with the health care industry. Waste. Insubordination. Doctors preening like they’re kind, and the hospital is their own private fiefdom. Health care is a business, I’m gonna run it like one. I hereby move to revoke the tenure of Dr. Gregory House and terminate his employment at this hospital, effective immediately.” Vogler declared, which made the red head jump up from her seat and slam her hand on the desk. “Since when can you decide for everyone? Are you some sort of God or what? You are WRONG Ed. First of all, Gregory House is the ONLY doctor in this hospital who is capable of being perfectly objective and save ALL his patients, even from the weirdest, most unexpected diseases! Secondly, yeah, we ARE Gods, in a way! We actively get ourselves in the line to save hundreds of lives, we...We HOLD their fates in OUR hands! He is not the problem, and Health Care is NOT supposed to be a business! This is not a business corporate, this is a HOSPITAL! A place where we, DOCTORS, save lives! You wouldn’t get it, you’re not a doctor! You didn’t have to see people in agony, begging to be killed, nor did you have people crying in happiness for being saved! You know absolutely NOTHING of medicine! You have NO right to fire Gregory House, just like you have NO right to tell us, who spent over 10 years of our youth studying constantly, and more than 10 years having this healthcare as our everyday life style, that we should do this for money, and not for the people!” the room went silent from the shock of her outburst, since nobody, in 15 years, saw her so agitated, and yet, she was right...Against the wrong man. “Fascinating and touching speech, I must say. Now I know what I have to deal with. Now then, let’s resume to our votes. All in favour of firing Dr. Gregory House?” Vogler asked, cheekily raising his own hand, which was slowly followed by everyone, except for Katrina and James, who looked at each other with worry, letting their arms fall back from the table and holding hands for comfort. “Dr. Wilson? Dr. Black?” Vogler tried to nudge to give in, but it was for naught. “Opposed.” both of them answered in unison, knowing that either way, they’re screwed. “The...Motion is defeated.” the business man sighed, letting silence hang in for a few seconds, before speaking again, in a chirper voice. “Dr. Wilson, Dr. Black, would you mind leaving the room, please?” “Excuse me?” James asked, frowning in confusion at his words. “We’re going to take another vote.” Vogler explained, as if it was nothing. “We are board members. We have to be here when you vote. You can’t void our votes by making us stand in the hallway. And, as far as I’m aware, you need notice and at least one business day before you can reconsider any matter.” James continued, knowing very well that he can’t prolong the agony. “We’re voting on a different matter, which you are conflicted out of.” Vogler stood up, looking solemn over everyone. “How can we be conflicted out of? What is that even supposed to mean?” Katrina asked, looking at Lisa, who seemed to have an apologetic look on her face. “This vote is whether to dismiss Dr. James Wilson and Katrina Black.” everyone looked down hearing that...Katrina and James were a completely different matter, compared to House... “Oh, great, yes, fire everyone who is speaking the truth and doesn’t go by your stupid business idea. Newsflash, not everybody is a greedy fuckass like you are. Some of us are here because that’s why we wasted our life for! Saving! LIVES! If you guys, after so many years of working together, think that I and Wilson should leave, then fine, sure, vote yes. But if you’re doing it because of this guy...Then congratulations, welcome to communism. Trust me, I’d know, I’m Romanian.” looking with disgust at that guy, she grabbed her friend and left the office without another word, and when they got far enough, she slammed her back on a wall, pulling at her hair. “At least I know why House likes you. You were right. You have always been an admirable doctor. I hope one day he will appreciate you as he should. Its not like he has many people who actually tolerate him...” James put his hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her out of having an anxiety attack, until Vogler came by, looking as menacing and narcissistic as usual.

He threatened both of them, saying they have the option of leaving the hospital, otherwise he will destroy them...Which means that there was at least one person who voted to keep them there.

There was no point in trying to comfort each other, so instead, they went to their own offices, packing up everything they owned.  However, instead of packing, Katrina stood criss-crossed on her desk, looking at her prized possessions on the shelves, including her awards, diplomas, random little plants and flowers, cute decorations...And a fox that had a heart in its mouth, that she received as a gift from House, Wilson and Cuddy when she became the head of the Cardiology department.

She didn’t even realise how tears were falling down her face, she almost felt numb to it all, but in reality, her heart hurt like hell and she couldn’t imagine how life would continue to go on from now on.

The sound of the door softly opening was blocked away by her personal phone ringing, and with a lethargic move, she raised her phone, without looking at the caller ID, and answered.

“What do you want?” Kat sighed on the phone, not having the strength to fake cheerfulness as she usually did. “Oh, sweety, hi, how are you?” ...it was her mother...What a coincidence. “Why are you calling? You haven’t contacted me since I left the country. I’m not sure you realised the passing of time, but it’s been over 15 years.” the girl sneered over the phone, clutching her grip on it. “Don’t be like that, darling, I just wanted to see how my eldest daughter is doing! You see, we want to visit you tomorrow, and -” her mother began, but was quickly cut off by her daughter. “You’re in America?! Why in the world are you here?! You NEVER left the country!” her alarmed reaction was rightfully explained, as her mother only laughed fakely. “Well, you see, your sister is very sick and she needs organ transplants and...You are a perfect match! Your sister really, really needs your kidney, liver and heart, and -” of course the only reason she’d call is because she needed her... “You...Called...So that I would kill myself...And give my organs to your precious daughter...Because I don’t deserve to live, but she does...Sorry, you might not have been informed, I’m a stone cold bitch without a heart, and I’ve always been. If you want organs, beg to a transplant committee, otherwise, I’m not giving my life to some stupid bitch who thinks she’s better than me. Oh, and, by the way, in case you’ve forgotten, you already disowned me long ago, so there’s no reason for you to call anymore. And don’t call me to the funeral, I won’t come. Bye.” Kat aggressively slammed the phone lid close, before throwing it on the ground, putting her head on her hands and finally breaking down to cry...

But there were no tears.

There was only exhaustion.

“Hey.” the low voice of Doctor Gregory House echoed through the room which made the girl squeak in surprise and turn back to look at him with wide, frightened eyes. “Don’t you know it’s rude to sneak up on people?!” she accused him, clutching her blouse where her heart is supposed to be. “I knocked. You didn’t answer, I let myself in. I...See you’re not having the best day.” Greg pointed out, which only made the girl roll her eyes and turn back to look at her shelf. “Yeah, no kidding.” she snorted, her hands grasping her ankles as she looked down. “Why did you come here? Did Wilson tell you what happened and you came to throw some pity words and say how you saved the patient? If yes, then go ahead, I’m listening...As always.” she waved her hand around, urging him to talk and stop being so awkward, but the silence seemed to cut them with a laser. “...Thank you.” the words she never heard uttered from his mouth before shocked her so much that she turned around to look at him, holding the eye contact that she was barely able to hold with anyone. “You...You? Gregory House? Are...Thanking...Me? For what? You never thanked me for anything I did to you, so why the change of heart? Did Wilson’s golden tongue melt your heart and mellowed you?” she taunted him to get him talking, but his expression didn’t seem as harsh or condescending as it usually did, instead, he seemed to be...Almost apologetic? As if he realised that his actions of being himself hurt the people he cares about. “Do you hate me?” Greg asked, which made the girl frown and blink in confusion. “You...Think that I gave up the best thing I’ve ever had, which is my job here, because...I hated you? I loved this place because you were here...And James and Lisa...But now that it’s all over...What are the odds of someone hiring all three of us at once, and...Lisa miraculously becoming the head of another hospital and...Yeah, I’ve got nothing, it’s all ruined. Guess I can finally get a vacation. Anything else you want to say before I fuck off completely out of your life, just as you wanted to?” it was clear that she was exhausted and just wanted to go home and be herself with no more veil of lies covering her. “You...You are too good for jerks like me, Katrina. You should hate me. I repeatedly ruined your happiness time and time again.” House muttered, looking down at the floor. “Right...I’m sorry for caring about you, I guess...If that’s what you want me to say. Stupid Katrina, huh? Always caring about others and forget about herself. Always so miserable and helpless, but nobody seems to notice. Stupid, lonely Katrina, who has no friends and no relatives to care for her...Who only want her alive to donate all her organs to her sick sister and she can just die for all anyone cares. Now, thanks for telling me that I should hate the only person I actually gave a damn about and trusted whole-heartedly. You made your point, as usual, you want me out of your life, I will do just that. Have a not-so-miserable life from now on...At least you.” she wiped her face from the tears, waving her hand for him to leave her alone already, as she looked at shelves again and hugged the fox tightly to her chest, burying her face in it. “The answer is yes.” was the only thing House said as he left her office, his head hung, and for the first time in ages, he felt his own heart aching at the sight of the girl crying.

While he did as he usually does, spending all his time saving his patient, she drank herself to sleep, day and night, listening to sad songs, singing them at the top of her lungs, hoping it would be therapeutical, but at some point, she forgot what it meant to be properly rational, and she touched the forbidden stash she was never supposed to use.

And in the end, at whatever god forsaken hour of the early morning, she called someone, and dearly hoped they would answer. She had no idea why she called this person...Maybe because he was the first person in the calling list, or maybe there was some other underlying reason that she didn’t want to accept.

Apparently, being drunk out of your wits out on the terrace of her penthouse, while singing at the top of her lungs some silly or depressing Romanian songs, as outside was freezing cold and snowing heavily...But she didn’t feel the cold, despite how light she was dressed...It wasn’t enough make her feel something again.

“Katrina? Do you know what time it is?” a gruff, sleepy voice asked on the other end of the line. “N-No, not really. I wasn’t even sure who I called. Sorry.”  she sighed, as she started to cry. “Are...You crying?” a rustle from the other side resembled House getting up rapidly from the bed. “I-I think so, y-yeah. I...I didn’t realise I was crying. I-I don’t even know why I called you.” she gasped, taking another shot of vodka mixed with chocolate bailey’s. “Are you drunk?!” House spoke in a higher voice, obviously shocked, putting on his coat. “You don’t even drink!...I’m coming over.” “N-No, y-you can’t! You can’t see me like this! And...And I have to know something very important from you! It’s VERY important! Life or death important!” she raised her voice into the phone, unkown to him, as she was fidgeting back and forth on the couch, which made House stop in his tracks just as he touched the door knob. “What is it?” he asked in a way so she would try to calm down. “D-Do you...Do you hate me?!” the desperation in her voice was something so foreign for him to experience, but something so usual for her. “What?! What’s that question, why in the world would I hate you?! Katrina, what did you do?!” he slammed the door shut, rushing towards his motorbike. “I NEED to know that! Just answer this simple question! Please, Greg, just answer!” her voice became more strained and desperate. “...Of course I don’t hate you. I couldn’t. Not you.” he sighed, getting up on his motorbike. “No matter what I did?” she started sobbing by now, which really worried the man. “Yes, of course, now hang in there, I’m gonna be there in a few minutes.” Greg put his phone on speaker, in his jacket, so he could still talk to her, as thankfully, their homes were pretty close to each other. “Greg...I-I’m...I’m afraid...I...I did something bad...Something very bad...” she turned around on the couch she was lying on, watching the sky as she shivered, snow falling on her, as she took another shot. “Katrina, I’m waiting at the elevator. What did you do?” House kept tapping his foot until that dreadfully slow elevator pinged, showing it got to the bottom floor, then got in, waiting to reach the pent house. “I...Took pills...” she muttered, clutching the box of pills. “How many?” he asked urgently. “I-I don’t know! I’m drunk, I’m hurting, I’m desperate, I’m lonely and I had a bottle of pills...One, two, three, four, five...And then it’s all blurry...But the bottle seems pretty empty...And I’m scared of an OD...” she explained over the phone, and then, she heard the front door slam close, and next thing she saw was a tall figure rushing in front of her, then he crashed on the couch on the terrace, and he pulled her to his chest, putting his jacket around her shoulders, his hands on her face, trying to warm her up. “You...Absolute...Idiot!” Greg scolded her, which only made her chuckle weakly. “I really am, aren’t I?” she said as more tears fell down her face. “You really don’t hate me, do you? Now that you know?” she clutched tightly to his Tshirt, as he could only sigh and hold her tightly. “No. I don’t hate you. I can’t...Now show me the pill bottle.” he told her, and suddenly, he felt her fall limp in his arms, just as she pointed to the empty, knocked down bottle of anti-drepressants. “What did you do...” Greg muttered in horror as he dragged her to the bathroom, getting her in the bathtub, completely dismissing his aching leg, as he used the shower tap to get warm water on her, while he made her vomit all the pills she downed, hoping she wouldn’t need to go to the hospital, and obviously, that nothing would happen to her.

For the whole night and morning, he didn’t move from there, only holding the girl, checking on her at regular intervals of time, making sure her vitals were still normal... Until she heard a string of incoherent mutters, begging him not to leave her alone and that she doesn’t want to to be away from him.

Oh, Kat, if only you knew what kind of effect you had on him...What kind of pain you were making him feel...The grief of being betrayed by Stacy, the one he thought was the love of his life, and then the painful leg...And now you, someone he cares so much for...

She deserves so much more...She is so much better than he is, House thought, and yet, the selfish part of him, the one that was quickly beginning to gain terrain against his sensible one, desperately wanted to cling onto her and have her be his lover together.

Funny how the ones who look to be the healthiest and happiest are in reality the best actors and nobody knows if there’s ever anything wrong with them.   Which only made her kindness and feelings towards him more genuine, he thought. She’s in constant pain, just like him, it was no wonder she could sympathise so well with, unlike everybody else...Or maybe she was just empathetic enough? More like Pathetic, she’d say, no doubt.

Time passed at an irrelevant pace, until she finally began to stir in her unconscious state, and finally, she fluttered her eyes open, making Gregory sigh in relief, and as soon as they made eye contact, her cheeks began to turn a hue pinker.

“Greg...? Why are you...? What happened...?” Kat muttered, clutching her head in pain. “You don’t remember anything from last night?” he asked, frowning in confusion. “...Sorry. I know I was pretty sad...And I was listening to music from my childhood at home...And I started drinking...And I remember the bottle of pills taunting me...And from then on, it’s all blank. Did I...Did I call you...?” she clinged on his shirt to get into a sitting position. “Yeah, something like that. Can you stand? You need to change into dry clothes before you catch the Rhino thing.” he joked, making the girl smile softly. “Oh no, not the Rhino thing!” she chuckled, and with a bit of help, she got up, and was able to change into proper, warm clothes. “I’m starving, wanna go eat something? I have some coupons for the Chinese restaurant just down the street.” she hooked her arm to his, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Sounds like a plan, let’s go. But before that, you must promise me never to do something like that again.” House looked at her with seriousness in his eyes. “Okay. I promise. I...I don’t know why I caved in like that. I always promised myself I’d never go that far...I fucked up once, but in a different way...And...I guess in my drunk state I didn’t realise that no matter how many pills I take, the pain won’t go away...Drunk people are really stupid, aren’t they” she chuckled awkwardly, lowering her head in guilt and shame as she used her chopsticks to get some noodles. “...People in pain do stupid things sometimes.” Greg muttered, letting silence take over them for a few minutes, before speaking again. “Happy late birthday, Katrina.” his words made her look at him with eye, confused eyes, before taking out her phone at looking at the date, realising she spent her whole birthday drinking. “I...Completely forgot...Guess now we’re even, huh?” Kat smirked, pointing her chopsticks at him in amusement.

Not much time later, House called Kat over to his office at evening, and everyone dear to her was there, celebrating that Lisa managed to get rid of Vogler once and for all...Of course, of the 100 million $ too, but that’s besides the point. They were back in business, the shock family, ready to save more lives again!

Everything went back to normal - Or well, the normality that was entrapped in their weirdness - But it was THEIR normality. A chaos of going back and forth, arguing, almost killing patients, and then, saving them miraculously.

However, nobody is safe from illness, and one day, during some diagnosis discussion, Kat was pacing back and forth, thinking and saying her ideas for the others to refute or agree to, only for her to abruptly stop in her tracks, her back facing everyone as she coughed.

“Haemoptysis.” she muttered, only for House to grimace. “Haemo-what now? Last time I checked, our patient didn’t cough nor spit blood.” but instead of answering, she coughed up a bit more, her hands covering her face. “Vertigo...” she spoke again, in a much fainter voice. “What the hell are you babbling about?” he hit his cane on the ground, only to see her taking a few steps forwards, albeit, a little wobbly. “I’m...Gonna...” and just as she uttered those words, her legs gave out, and she fell, the only reason for not hitting the ground being Greg’s Godly reflexes which ensured he caught her. “Damn it, not again...What are you three sitting around for? Get a crash cart and a nurse!” House scolded his interns, who rushed to do just that. “What did you do this time, Kat...” he shook his head in disdain as he brushed her gorgeous crimson hair out of her face.

She looked so peaceful now, unconscious, were it not for the blood on her chin and hands, but now, unlike last time, she didn’t look like some kind of undead who was ready to give up her life at any given moment out of sheer misery and self-hatred.

As soon as she was taken away from his arms, he refused to go look over her...He didn’t want to admit it, but he was afraid that, since he cared so much about her, he would become unreasonably subjective and he may completely screw up her diagnosis. Greg hoped with all his heart that it was nothing life-threatening, but blood in her lungs was no easy, nor simple thing.

Wilson visited her and held her hand, Cuddy visited her and kissed her forehead, even his subordinates went to check up on her because they wanted to...Even her cardiology colleagues went to see how she was doing...

But not him. Never him. Because if he did, he was screwed for life.

No matter how much he wanted to deny himself, however, he couldn’t help but find himself in her room, in the middle of the night, sitting on a chair besides her, holding her hand in both of his, kissing it and thinking of her diagnosis.

That is, until her hand suddenly started to shake, startling the doctor besides her, as she opened her eyes, panting for air.

“Hey, you okay?” House asked, squeezing her hand gingerly. “Urgh, yeah...Just had a nightmare...Followed by sleep paralysis. Again. Nothing new, here. Uhmm...It may sound as a bit of a deja-vu,  but what in the world happened?” she sighed, getting into a sitting position, looking at him. “You tell me. You coughed blood, got dizzy and fainted. Did you take anything? Felt bad or something?” he asked, making the girl scratch the back of her head awkwardly. “Nothing that I haven’t felt before, really. I have anxiety, I frequently experience restlessness, problems with breathing, arrhythmia, sometimes dizziness and stuff. It’s inconvenient, but you get used to it, so I didn’t took any pills, especially not after that scare a few days ago. Do you...Think it’s because of...My fuck up?” she looked worriedly at him, but he only looked down, thinking. “Not so fun being on the other end, huh?” House smirked before shaking his head. “I have no idea. We need to do some tests on you before we can confirm anything. But you’ll be fine, that much I can guarantee.” he promised, which made her smile sadly, leaning back on the pillow, squeezing his hand back. “Can you stay with me a bit longer? I, uhm...You know...Problems sleeping...When I’m with someone...I tend to sleep better...And a close to a full night. I-I don’t know why, but it’s always been like this.” she brought up the hem of the blanket to cover her face. “Then get a boyfriend and sleep with him. You’re young, smart and beautiful, there’s nothing stopping you from that.” Greg muttered in a low voice, almost self-deprecating. “Yeah, that’s easy. If men actually went out of their way to talk to me...And that hasn’t happened in 15 years, so, as you say, Mazel Tov. That, and I’m afraid of people.” she sighed, biting her lip in embarrassment. “Whaaaaaat? No boyfriend in 15 years? No action? I don’t believe you.” he took off the blanket from her face, only to see her blushing face. “You’re the only person that I never lied to. I’m great at lying and deceiving and all that...But yeah, I know, I’m pitiful, don’t have to remind me. Why do you think my life is mostly spent in the hospital. I’m not as lonely as I’d be at home.” she looked away, snatching her blanket back. “You don’t have to stay. It’s much more comfortable sleeping in a bed, especially with that leg of yours.” “Yeah, it would be. Now close your eyes and get some sleep.” and so, he didn’t budge from her side the whole night, and she didn’t wake up from nightmares or restlessness. 

Days went on, and she kept on getting tested, and House was beginning to get more and more angry at the fact that he wasn’t able to properly diagnose her faster, and he was becoming unbearable for everyone around him.

On the other hand, just as Lisa and James were visiting her, trying to keep her company, when the two people she never expected to see again burst into her room with wide grins on their faces...Which in turn, made Kat drop her phone on the ground from the shock.

“What the hell...?” the red haired girl’s bottom lip quivered in anger. “Kitty-Kat, darling, we missed you so much! You haven’t come home in 15 years!” the mum stepped forward, ready to throw her arms around the girl, but she was met with hostility as Kat dragged herself backwards in the bed, away from her, pure disgust glowing on her face. “Don’t you dare touch me! And don’t you even think about calling me that nickname! I don’t care if you’re my parents, you never gave a damn about me, so don’t pretend to do now that THE perfect daughter is terminally sick and needs a quick organ donation that would ultimately KILL the useless, unwanted, worthless daughter!” Kat sneered at them, untangling the respiratory oxygen tubes who got knotted in her sudden gesticulation. “Kat, are you alright...?” James walked next to her bed, trying to calm her down, only to get yelled at. “No, I’m not! Get them out of here before I get a restriction order!” she continued to glare at them. “Come one, Kitten, don’t be like that, we came all the way from Europe to see you, when you didn’t even give us a call! I don’t know why you hate us.” the dad gave an awkward smile, as if he was embarrassed by his problematic child. “You didn’t call once to tell me Happy Christmas, or...Or Happy Birthday...You didn’t congratulate me on finishing University or on...Literally anything. And now, you come to me only to make sure that I actually die so you could take away my organs and make sure your favourite daughter keeps on living...And you’re actually...You really...Have the guts to ask me WHY I hate you? I hate you because you never cared for me, that’s why!” she gripped the hand grasps of the bed, not realising that House also got in the room. “No need to be so selfish, darling, it’s just a few organs that you could live without! We managed to find a heart transplant, we just need a kidney and part of your liver!” the father tried to negotiate, only for her to grit her teeth. “You know what? I hope my sister dies the most painful death there is, and that you go off after her. We may be blood related, but I was never your daughter. And you know what? Just to make sure...You think you can get my organs? Here’s my response to that!” in a fit of rage, she ripped her oxygen tubes, which continued with violent coughing and some blood. “Why the hell do you even want me to treat you when all you do is get yourself in self-harming situations? First, you OD on anti-depressants while drunk, and now you’re cutting off your oxygen supply to prove your point that you have mummy and daddy issues and that you’d rather die than...Die? You’re just a selfish, immature girl with suicidal tendencies whenever things don’t go her way. You think I’m gonna lie to the transplant committee for someone like that? Because the answer is NO!” House limped in front of her, speaking with so much hatred that it made the girl cry and shake, crestfallen at the words she heard. “And you just had to go ahead and tell everyone that I’m fucked in the head. I wonder how much that is gonna up my chances of actually...Making friends and...A boyfriend...Y’know...Literally anyone who’d actually give a fuck about me. So...Yeah, thanks, you’re right, I’d rather die than being humiliated by the only person I ever actually had any genuine feelings for, because I’m sort of a sociopath with relationship traumas. So, if you could do me a favour, before I pass out, pick these two idiots and get yourself out of this place before I call security, okay? Thanks, bye.” and just like that, she started coughing up more blood, and fainted.

Seeing her being a reckless idiot drove House through the roof, and he realised that maybe, his dad wasn’t the only one to need a “Parent Of The Year” award, but even so, the fact that Katrina was so angry that she felt the need to be so overly dramatic to prove a point, and to have Cuddy kick them out of the hospital, sure was meant she was desperate, and for good reason. No wonder she never spoke about her family, or about anything about herself, unless it meant some nostalgic things about her country and other things that could come up as funny when told properly.

But why the hell does she have to make everything so much more complicated to him, especially now that he completely screwed up everything and she hates him.

How the hell did he manage to fuck up like that, just when he finally got ready to tell her how he feels...How he GENUINELY feels, without having to get full-sarcastic-jerk mode, and just telling her that he’s over Stacy completely and he’s ready to commit to her...And he just ends up basically telling her that he hates her, which is a complete lie.

Great job, Gregory House. The only thing you’re capable of doing is diagnosing and saving people, and sometimes, even that fails. Good thing she was okay, and with some anti-coagulant medicine, the clot that was causing her pulmonary embolism completely disappeared, and she was all ready to go.

Ever since that day, House didn’t visit her, her parents completely disappeared, and James and Lisa were completely pitiful, which only made the girl miserable. Thanking whatever deity existent that it was the last night being stuck in the hospital as the unfavoured party, so she went up on the roof, sitting on the little wall edge, looking up at the starts on the sky, putting the saddest song she ever knew to play on her MP3 player, which was “Daca ploaia s-ar opri” from Cargo, and as she softly sang the lyrics, the door opened and the sound of tapping cane was heard, 

“I have no idea what the words are, but he song seems pretty sad. What gives?” House limped towards her, which only made her groan and roll her eyes in annoyance. “Aaaand you had to ruin the most emotional song as well. Great, what is next on your long list of destroying? I have no dignity, no pride anymore...My health you can’t legally screw...And there’s nothing else on the table is there? I have no heart anyway. So why are you here?” she asked, not even bothering to look at him. “Would you believe me if I said I came here to apologise?” House asked, getting closer to her, then turning his head to look up at the stars as well. “After what you pulled in that room...No. I don’t believe you anymore. You’re a jerk. You’ve always been one, but not to me, and not enough to actually hurt me. Now you did. Congratulations. You lost a friend...Not that you’d care, anyway. You’ve proven me that enough. You can go now.” she sighed, hugging her knees to her chest. “Yeah, I know, I fucked up. I got scared when I saw you pull that stunt, I panicked and...That happened. And I’m sorry about that. I admit that much.” he said as he put his coat around her, hoping she wouldn’t die of cold or something. “Fantastic, the asshole knows how to apologise. Congratulations, you are amazing. Now, do you actually expect me to believe you, or what are you trying to accomplish?” Kat asked, giving him a sarcastic smile. “Before you got sick, I was...I was going to ask you out. But then you got sick, and in turn I got worried sick.” Greg began to explain, only to get cut off. “No, you’re lying or pitying me. You don’t like me. I’m not...I’m not Stacy, or...Or Lisa. I don’t challenge you with every turn you take, I’m not a jerk to you, I am...Practically nothing like the women that you have been interested with, so excuse me for not believing a word you say. I was sick, vulnerable and pitiful, you were miserable, you heard that I haven’t dated in 15 years, you thought I was desperate for love, but trust me, after what happened when I was 17...I don’t think I want anything like that again.” she tsked, looking away from him, laying her chin on her knees. “I know I’m a jerk, but does that really sound like something I would do?” his voice sounded almost hurt at the implication. “...No, it doesn’t. But I also don’t believe that you like me and you’re not saying that just because you heard my dying words...Allegedly. You’ve said your speech, now you can go, and we will continue our work as it always was, without having to see each other, so no more paging me when it’s convenient to you either. Goodbye.” she waved her hand to dismiss him, but he didn’t budge. “What will it take for you to believe me? I will give up my parking spot for you. I will play the guitar for you. I...Will convince Wilson to give me his stupid dog so you could visit him more often. I don’t know, you know I’m horrible with these things called emotions. But I want you to know that what I say its genuine...And apart from what I said today, I never lied to you. So, if you ever have it in your heart to believe me and give it a chance...I’ll be waiting. And...I’ll be here to listen to you talk about your pain as well.” he confessed, and as soon as he turned around to leave, she quickly extended her arm to grab his wrist. “You...Really...Mean it?” she muttered, not daring to look at him. “Because if you fuck up, I swear I’m going to do something completely unethical and against the Hippocratic oath. Primum non nocere, they say. First of all, don’t do harm. I’m completely fine with killing you, because, in case you don’t know, I’m a sociopathic, heartless foreigner with no morals or ethics.” she smirked at him in amusement. “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of Nocere, if you have the Vicodin for it. Fire-Kissed girls are said to kiss the best. If we test that theory and it’s true...Then I think we both know we’re gonna work pretty well. If you want to.” he looked at her, putting her hands of her face, looking at her tenderly. “I really hate that I was made broken from the making in factory to be completely unable of hating how big of a jerk you are. Why is it so...Endearing, when it comes from you, but completely repulsive when it comes from anyone else? I can’t tell, and it’s annoying, because I can read people to a T. On the other hand...There is another saying...Vixens always get what they want. Maybe I finally scored the big jackpot.” she chuckled, pulling him down in a soft kiss, the feeling of warmth and love lingering on, intoxicating them even after they parted. “Yeah. I was right. You’re like my own fix of Vicodin or Amphetamines, and I’m completely addicted to you.” he flashed her a charming, playful smile, before kissing her with even more fire and passion than before. “Careful, you don’t want to OD, do you? You’ll need a detox or rehab.” she laughed at him, putting her hands over his, kissing the inside of his wrist. “Oh, please, I’d OD on you ever day, as many times as you want, and I’d have no regrets. You know what they say...Tout le monde necessite La Petite Mort.” he retorted just as cheekily, which in turn, made her laugh merrily. “I can’t believe-! You just...You just said that-...! You’re an incredibly, annoyingly good flirter, especially because I told you those pick up lines before...But don’t forget about me.” she shook with laughter, winking at him mischievously. “Wilson’s ex-wives always praise him for being the best. I’ll prove him I’m better than him at everything. Especially this.” he chuckled, sitting next to her, putting his arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his chest, kissing the top of her head. “You better not talk about...That...To Wilson...Or Lisa...Or anyone, for the matter, or I swear, that little death you’re talking about, will be more literal than metaphorical.” she threatened him, poking his sides. “Oh, no, I’m scared of a little fox biting my nose while I’m asleep. Whatever could I do?” he mockingly called for help, which, as usual, made her laugh. “Jerk.” she grinned, hugging him tightly, cuddling closer to his side. “Yeah. I’ve been called that a lot.”

[lanezvlx082]

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[superbatson]

hey,, word on the street is,, u make a pretty decent headcanons list. I will take one order of leif pining over tobin or domestic coder boyfriends. pls n thank u. 🥰

you got it!

okay so, going off that suggested idea of tobin getting a boyfriend and leif growing jealous...

leif has no idea why he’s suddenly become so anti-productive. he tries to get himself focused on his work - the chirp is launching in a few months, anyway, so he’s on the clock - but he just can’t. he’s constantly finding himself distracted, looking towards tobin’s desk, where he too is getting little work done, his own attention turned onto his phone. he’s messaging back and forth with his boyfriend, the word somehow making leif sick to his stomach, and he keeps giggling like the guy’s the funniest person ever. leif used to be able to make tobin laugh like that. he doesn’t know what’s changed.

like seemingly everyone else in zoey’s life, leif refuses to acknowledge his feelings for tobin and growing jealousy over his newfound relationship. so, naturally, this pulls a heartsong from him, which zoey hears loud and clear one day while at work, enough that it pulls her own focus towards leif, watching as, in her head, he pulls himself out of the meeting room he’d been working in, hovering around tobin’s desk whilst singing “sweater weather” by the neighbourhood. it frustrates zoey, because getting involved in her boss’ personal life was bad enough, but now she has to help her enemy? the guy who is literally out for her own job, and joan’s? but, she knows the consequences of refusing to help, and “sweater weather” had already gotten old to her back in 2014, so she does not need to hear it more than once.

leif denies it, of course. both his feelings for tobin and his attraction to men as a whole, because he probably thinks it’d look bad for the future owner of a tech company to be openly bisexual. zoey really has no patience for biphobia in this day and age, so she kind of snaps and comes clean to leif about her powers and how if she doesn’t help him, she’ll continue hearing “sweater weather” for days, and apparently that gets leif to believe her, because he’d actually been listening to the song on his way to work and singing along with thoughts of tobin in his head. before they set any plans in motion, though, she admits to hearing tobin sing “don’t speak” directed at leif weeks earlier, and that gives leif a semblance of hope. 

whatever shenanigans leif and zoey pull to get tobin to make the first move - secret admirer letters, fake grindr accounts, anonymous flower bouquets (that one blows up spectacularly, because zoey had ordered them, but she didn’t know tobin had an allergy to sunflowers, so leif was left trying to help him when he fell ill) - don’t work. it grows to the point that even max grows suspicious of all this time the pair spends together, and zoey has to fill him in on everything. following the flower incident, leif fires zoey as his helper, claiming to give up on the whole thing as it is.

in the end, when tobin returns to their apartment (because the flower thing probably gets to the point of tobin needing medical attention, if leif didn’t already hate zoey enough; and yes, they are roommates, you can pry that headcanon out of my dead hands), it comes out that he and his boyfriend had broken up anyway. turns out, their jobs made it impossible for them to get together in person after their first few dates, and the texting thing just wasn’t working anymore. leif offers tobin a shoulder to cry on, but tobin says he doesn’t need it, because he wasn’t into the guy that much anyway. he makes an offhand comment about having several other suitors already, and leif confesses that it was all him, that he got jealous and he’s in love with his best friend. tobin laughs, shaking his head, saying, “why didn’t you just say so?” before pulling leif close and kissing him on the lips. he probably still has some band-aids or hospital tags on, and maybe some allergy drugs still in his system, so it’s kinda messy and awkward, but they share in the laughter now, happy to finally be where they should have all along.

wow, okay, this turned into a long ass not!fic because the concept clearly got away from me. zep writers, hire me, i already have an entire episode written out for ya, lol

also you probably already know “sweater weather”, but the hyperlink is actually to a cover of it from michael thomas grant himself on youtube. not that i chose the song solely because he’s already covered it, but that definitely did help its chances of me ultimately going with it. (i sat here for like 15 minutes, trying to find a good pining song for leif. the existing cover thing gave the song a slight edge over the others.)

[hayleymedbil]

Open Your Career Potential: Top Medical Billing and Coding Jobs for 2023

Unlock Your Career Potential: Top Medical⁢ Billing and Coding Jobs for 2023

The healthcare ​industry continues to grow, with medical billing and coding jobs standing out as highly sought-after career options. As we progress through⁤ 2023, understanding the top⁢ roles in this field ⁢can definitely ⁤help you unlock your career potential.⁤ In this article, we delve into the highest paying jobs for medical billing and coding professionals, the required skills, the benefits of these careers, and practical tips to excel in this dynamic sector.

Why Choose a Career in Medical Billing and Coding?

medical billing and coding offer various advantages that make these fields appealing to many. Here are some compelling reasons to consider:

High Demand: With the aging population and increasing‍ healthcare services, the demand for⁣ skilled professionals is ‍on the rise.

Competitive ⁣Salary: Many positions in this field⁢ offer ⁤attractive salaries, depending ⁢on your experience and location.

Work⁢ Flexibility: Many roles allow remote​ work options, providing the freedom⁣ to balance personal and professional life.

Job security: The ‍healthcare industry is relatively recession-proof, which provides a sense of job stability.

Top Medical Billing and‌ Coding Jobs for 2023

The following table ‌highlights some of the best job ‍opportunities in the medical billing and coding sector for 2023, including average salaries and⁤ primary responsibilities.

Job title

Average Salary

Primary Responsibilities

Medical Coder

$54,000

Assign codes ‍for ⁢diagnoses and procedures based on clinical ‌information.

Billing Specialist

$48,000

Manage patient billing and collections for healthcare providers.

Compliance Specialist

$62,000

Ensure that⁢ billing practices comply with⁣ regulations and ⁣standards.

Health Information Technician

$56,000

Maintain and manage patient health information records.

coder ‌Educator

$65,000

Train new coders on ⁣coding procedures, regulations, and software.

Essential Skills for Success⁣ in Medical Billing and Coding

To thrive in this field,specific skills and qualifications are necessary:

Attention to Detail: Accurate coding helps prevent billing errors and ensures compliance.

Knowledge of Medical ‍Terminology: Understanding healthcare vocabulary is crucial ⁢for effective dialogue and coding.

analytical Skills: Ability to ‌analyze and interpret medical ‌data for ​appropriate coding is ​vital.

Familiarity with Coding Software: Proficiency in software like ICD-10, CPT, and HCPCS is often required.

Problem-Solving Skills: The ability to resolve ⁤discrepancies that may arise during the billing process.

Case Study: A Day in the⁤ Life of a Medical Coder

Let’s take a closer ⁣look at a real-world example.⁤ Meet Jane, a certified medical coder working for a large healthcare facility.

“Each day‍ starts with logging into the system‌ and⁢ reviewing any incomplete coding requests. My role​ involves analyzing clinical documents to ensure accurate coding of patient treatments. I also spend time communicating with healthcare providers to clarify‌ any ​ambiguities in diagnoses or treatments. The best part? I love knowing I play a vital role in ensuring that healthcare providers are compensated fairly for the services they ‌deliver!”

Practical Tips for Success in Medical Billing and Coding

To advance in your medical billing and coding career, consider implementing ⁢the following strategies:

Obtain Relevant Certifications: ​ Certifications such as Certified Professional‍ Coder (CPC) or Certified Coding Specialist (CCS) can enhance your credibility.

Stay Updated: Regularly read industry publications and attend workshops to stay informed about changes in coding regulations.

Network with Professionals: ‍ Join professional organizations ⁤such as the American Academy‍ of Professional​ Coders (AAPC) to meet others⁢ in your field.

Practice Continuing Education: Participate in online courses to bolster your knowledge and skills in coding and billing.

Conclusion

Unlocking your career potential ⁣in medical billing and coding is more achievable than ever in 2023. With a‍ variety of high-paying jobs available, the right skills, ⁤and the proper knowledge, you can thrive in this rewarding field.By focusing on continuous education and⁤ networking, you can ensure long-term success in your chosen career ‍path. Dive into‌ the ‍world⁣ of medical billing and coding today, and take the first step‌ towards a fulfilling career!

https://medicalcodingandbillingclasses.net/open-your-career-potential-top-medical-billing-and-coding-jobs-for-2023/

[brookemedbil]

Open Your Career Potential: The Essential Guide to Earning a Medical Billing and Coding Diploma

Unlock ‌Your Career Potential: The Essential Guide⁤ to Earning a Medical Billing and Coding Diploma

In the ever-evolving healthcare landscape, the ⁢demand for skilled professionals in ⁤medical ⁤billing and coding continues ‌to grow exponentially. If you’re considering a career in this field, earning a Medical Billing‍ and Coding Diploma can open‌ doors to numerous ⁣opportunities. This ⁣essential guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from the benefits of this diploma to‌ practical tips for succeeding in ⁤your studies.

What⁢ is Medical Billing and Coding?

Medical billing and coding ⁤are​ critical ‍components ​of the healthcare system. ⁣Medical​ billers manage the billing process, while medical coders interpret clinical documentation and assign appropriate codes for diagnoses and treatments. This process ensures that healthcare providers are reimbursed⁣ accurately and promptly for the services rendered.

Benefits of Earning a Medical Billing and Coding Diploma

High⁣ Demand: The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects job growth in this field to be much faster than average through 2030.

Flexible Work Options: Many professionals in this field ​work from ⁣home‍ or have flexible schedules.

Good Earning Potential: Average salaries for medical billers and coders can ​range‍ from $40,000 to $60,000 annually, depending on⁣ experience and​ location.

Short⁣ training ⁣Programs: ‍Most diploma programs can be completed in less than a year, allowing for swift entry into the workforce.

Is ‍a ​Medical Billing and Coding Diploma Right for You?

Before pursuing a diploma,⁣ consider your skills ‌and interests:

Are you detail-oriented?

Do you enjoy working⁣ with numbers ⁢and data?

Are you interested in healthcare but⁣ prefer a‌ non-clinical role?

If you answered “yes” to these questions, a Medical Billing and ‍Coding Diploma may⁢ be a perfect fit for you!

Choosing the ⁤Right Program

When searching for‍ a diploma program, consider the ⁣following factors:

Accreditation: Ensure the program is ⁣accredited by a recognized institution.

Curriculum: Review ‌the curriculum to​ ensure ⁣it covers essential topics‌ such as ICD-10 coding, ⁤CPT coding, and billing procedures.

Job Placement Services: Look for programs⁣ that offer ⁣career support and job placement assistance.

Practical⁢ Tips for success in‍ Medical Billing and Coding

Learn the ⁤Terminology: Familiarize yourself with ‌medical terminology as it’s fundamental for understanding billing and coding.

Master the Coding Systems: ‍Focus on learning ICD, CPT, and HCPCS⁢ coding systems, as these are⁣ essential for your career.

Stay Updated: Keep⁤ abreast of changes in healthcare laws, technology, and coding guidelines.

Network: Join ​professional organizations, attend workshops, and connect with industry professionals to build your network.

Case Study: From Student ⁢to Professional

Meet Sarah, a recent graduate of a Medical Billing and Coding Diploma program. After completing her studies at a local community college,Sarah secured a position as a medical coder⁣ at a regional hospital within weeks of graduating. “The coursework was challenging,but the support from my instructors was invaluable,” she says. “I ​had zero ​experience in healthcare,but now I’m on my way to building a fulfilling career.”

A Day in the ‍Life of a Medical ⁣Biller and Coder

What can you expect in‍ this role? Here’s a glimpse into a typical day:

Time

Activity

8:00 AM

Review daily tasks and emails

9:00 AM

Code and bill⁣ recent patient visits

12:00 PM

Lunch break

1:00 PM

Follow up⁤ on denied claims

3:00 ‌PM

meet with healthcare providers to clarify documentation

4:30 PM

Prepare reports for management

First-Hand Experience: Navigating ⁤Challenges in Medical ‌Billing and Coding

While working in the field, you might encounter various challenges, from insurance claim denials to‍ keeping up with coding changes. Sharing her experience,​ Emily, a seasoned medical​ coder, highlights the importance of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. “Not all claims go⁤ through smoothly,” she says, “and each denial is a learning opportunity.” By continuously seeking knowledge, you can tackle these challenges⁤ effectively.

Resources for Aspiring Medical ‌Billers and Coders

To support your journey, consider exploring the ​following⁤ resources:

AAPC (American Academy of Professional coders) – Offers training, certification,‍ and ‌resources.

American Health Information⁤ Management Association (AHIMA) – Focuses on health information management ⁤and coding education.

Medical Billing and Coding certification – Provides ‍information on certification options.

Conclusion

Earning a Medical Billing ⁣and Coding ‌Diploma can be‌ your gateway to a rewarding career in healthcare. With high⁣ demand for skilled professionals and opportunities for​ advancement, this diploma empowers‌ you to make a significant impact in the ​industry. By choosing the ‍right program, mastering essential skills, and leveraging resources, you can unlock your career potential and thrive in this dynamic field. Are you ready to‍ take the first​ step on your journey?

https://medicalbillingcodingcourses.net/open-your-career-potential-the-essential-guide-to-earning-a-medical-billing-and-coding-diploma/

[eva-knits12]

I had to learn about shady companies the hard way.

Last year, I took a job at a medical coding company. I'm a member of the American Academy of Profession Coders, otherwise known as the AAPC in business terms.

I aced the interview process, took the quiz, even though I failed-it's been a while since i took a quiz, using all resources I had, but go the job anyway.

They trained me for a few days, trained me using Google drives, I would get the drives mixed up because I couldn't tell which one was which, and I was working remotely. If a business uses Google Drives, they look identical, so there was no way to differentiate between the main drive and the other drive. So, I would put the information and the codes in the main drive.

I got better and faster with my coding, because for the longest time, I was trained to use the ICD-10, CPT, and HCPCS. I got better, and used Google, and whatever other sources that the company made available to me, and a few days later, I was left on my own. I also had to log into EPIC, which is the main software that pretty much every hospital, urgent care center, and doctor's office uses. I actually had to get in touch with the owner to log into EPIC, even though I was given my own log-in info. Again, I was working remotely.

The Wednesday before I was fired, they talked about my training. Now, keep in mind that I'm still trying to find my way as a coder. They said that my coding wasn't up to par, that I was getting the codes mixed up and I was getting the drives mixed up. Keep in mind, that on Google Drives, each drive looks identical, so you don't know which one is which. If it was a different drive system, then yes, it would be easier.

So, I finished my work for the day. I finished my work for the next day. That Friday, at 6:00 a.m., I'm e-mailed my work and my tasks for the day. I planned on logging on early to fix my mistakes, and do my tasks for the work day. Instead, at 7:00 a.m. on the same day, I'm fired. I had worked there for a week, and was promised a check. The check NEVER came. I kept waiting, and the check never came.

At the end of that July, my dad suggested that I file a complaint with the Michigan department of Labor, so I filed a complaint with the labor board. Luckily, my case worker was responsive, and got back to me straightaway with everything that I had approached him, and all of my questions. They did an investigation with this company, and they had trouble trying to find an address, and couldn't even get a hold of the owner, I had trouble getting a hold of her when I was there, too. So, the state fines the company, and mails me a step-by-step detail of their investigation of this company.

I still haven't seen a check, and I'm not going to. The company and it's owner are crooks. The reviews proved that the owner is a lot like that high school mean girl who has never left high school mentally.

Had I done my research, and paid attention to the reviews, I would have saved myself the time and heartache, but I needed the job.

So, you did the right thing by researching the company and discovering how shady they are.

Today my intuition is on point! Had a job interview scheduled for tomorrow, and I could hear my voice inside of my head saying, "Check their site!", I didn't pay attention, but I heard it louder "CHECK THEIR SITE!!".

I did and guess what? It was unprofessional, and messy, with links all over the place, and according to the job description, they were unconsciously expecting me to fix every mess they had on their website, open social media accounts, etc. with a minimum wage because it was a freelance gig. Been in the business for +10 years, I know a red flag when I see one.

I just sent them an email and told them I was selected for another position. It was a lie but they don't need to know.

[sahraeyll]

Learning Medical Claims: The Essential Guide for Aspiring Billing Specialists

mastering Medical Claims: The Essential Guide ⁣for Aspiring​ Billing Specialists

In the ever-evolving world of ⁣healthcare, mastering ⁢medical claims is crucial for ‍aspiring billing​ specialists.The billing process is fundamental ‌to‌ ensuring that healthcare providers are reimbursed for ⁤their services, making it essential for billing professionals to have a firm grasp of medical claims. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the steps to‍ mastering medical claims, ​providing valuable insights, practical tips, and a few​ real-world scenarios along the⁢ way.

Understanding Medical‌ Claims

A medical claim is a request for payment that a healthcare provider submits to a payer, such ​as an‌ insurance company or Medicare. The claim includes details such as diagnosis codes,​ procedure codes, and patient facts. Understanding the elements that ‌comprise a medical claim⁤ is the first step toward becoming ⁣a triumphant billing specialist.

types of Medical Claims

Institutional Claims: Used by healthcare facilities like hospitals.

Professional Claims: ⁣ Typically submitted by individual healthcare providers.

Dental Claims: Specifically for dental procedures and services.

Essential Skills for Billing Specialists

To excel in the field of medical billing, certain skills are‍ indispensable. Hear are a few key competencies that every billing specialist should develop:

1. Attention to Detail

Errors in coding or billing ​can lead⁣ to claim denials. ‌Being meticulous helps prevent costly mistakes.

2. Understanding of Medical‍ Terminology

A solid⁤ grasp of ‌medical terminology enables billing ‌specialists to understand the services being billed​ accurately.

3.Proficiency in Coding

Coding knowledge is critical.Familiarity with ICD-10, CPT, and HCPCS codes is a must for submitting accurate ⁢claims.

4.Knowledge of Regulations

Billing specialists should stay informed on healthcare​ regulations, ⁢including HIPAA and the Affordable Care Act, to ensure compliance.

Benefits of a ⁤Career in Medical Billing

Embarking on a career in medical ⁣billing comes with ‍various benefits:

Job Security: The healthcare industry‍ is stable and continually growing,​ leading to a high demand⁣ for billing specialists.

Flexible Work Environment: Many positions allow for remote work or​ flexible hours.

Career Advancement: There are numerous opportunities for ​certification and specialization, allowing professionals to advance their⁢ careers.

Compensation: The average salary for medical ​billing specialists is competitive.

Practical Tips for Aspiring Billing Specialists

Here are some practical tips to help you succeed‍ in mastering ‌medical claims:

1. Obtain Certification

Certifications such as Certified Professional Coder (CPC) or ⁤Certified Billing and Coding ⁢Specialist (CBCS) can enhance job prospects.

2. Stay Updated

Healthcare policies can change frequently. Regularly ‍read industry publications and attend ⁤workshops.

3. ⁤Network with Professionals

Join professional organizations like the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC)⁢ for networking opportunities.

Case Study: Overcoming Denials

Consider a scenario ‌where a billing specialist encounters⁤ a high volume of denied claims due to coding errors.By re-evaluating the processes in place, they implement a thorough review system​ that includes:

Regular audits of submitted claims.

Training sessions⁤ for staff on coding best ​practices.

Creating a checklist to ensure completeness before submitting ⁣claims.

As a result,the practice saw a substantial⁢ decrease⁣ in denials,improving ‌both revenue and efficiency.

First-Hand Experience: A Day in⁢ the Life of a Billing Specialist

As an aspiring billing specialist, my typical day begins​ with reviewing the claims processed the previous day. I check for any discrepancies to​ address before⁢ they escalate into ⁢denials.‍ I converse with ​healthcare providers to clarify codes and ensure everything is accurate. By midday,⁤ I frequently enough participate in training sessions, honing my coding skills. This ⁢constant learning ‌environment keeps the job dynamic and rewarding.

Conclusion

Mastering medical claims is ⁤an invaluable skill for aspiring billing specialists. By understanding the fundamentals, developing essential ‌skills, and staying abreast of industry​ changes, you can create a successful career ⁤in medical billing. Remember, the journey ​may be​ challenging, but the rewards of a stable and impactful profession await. With dedication and the right resources, you can navigate the medical billing landscape‍ and emerge as a competent ⁣specialist.

https://medicalbillingcertificationprograms.org/learning-medical-claims-the-essential-guide-for-aspiring-billing-specialists/