Take-aways from 2007 AHIMA Meeting

Philip Cohen (president of PRN Funding, LLC), traveled to Philadelphia, PA for the 2007 American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) Meeting earlier this month, and he wanted to share some of his general observations about this year’s conference for our medical coding blog readers.

 

Overall, Phil said that he was overwhelmed by the number of medical coding software vendors exhibiting at the show.  Much like the concept of outsourcing medical transcription has grown rapidly over the past decade, outsourced medical coding is well on its way.

 

It appears as a whole that HIM Directors are more willing to outsource a portion or all of their in-house medical coding.  However, perceived risk of using an outsourced medical coding vendor continues to remain a top worry for HIM professionals within a hospital setting.  Much like in the medical staffing industry or in the medical transcription industry, it will be up to the medical coding vendors to reduce the perceived risk.

 

Outsourcing medical coding is just one way that a medical facilitiy can cut in-house costs.  Given the current health care cash flow crunch, it will most likely take a long time for medical coding vendors to get paid by these facilities.  Therefore, it might be in their best interest to look into factoring their receivables with a funder who specializes in the medical coding industry.

 

Either way, medical coding is an industry is getting ready to explode.  PRN Funding will definitely be at the 2008 AHIMA Meeting in Seattle, Washington next year, ready and willing to learn about how we can help this growing industry become even better.