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Hello - I do not.  I know many people on social media coding groups who want to be a remote coder, and I know this was not your question, but I did just want to give some advice from my own experience.   

As an inpatient coder, I could not imagine working remotely with all that there is to learn as a new coder.  In addition, coders at my hospital also are the chart analyst (search for missing signatures, place deficiencies for missing dictation, etc.), the coder, and we are the abstractor.  So, every chart we touch has been analyzed, coded, and abstracted.  We abstract a LOT of information at our facility.  I could see why many companies want coders with at least 2-3 years experience.  On the other hand, I know coders who landed jobs right away, were trained while they were at home (very good training), and are doing very well at home.  It will all depend on what your employer will offer. 

When I was coding for outpatient and ancillary services, it was different, much easier, and I could see where this could have been done remotely by a less experienced coder.  Don't get me wrong - outpatient coding has its challenges, especially if you are coding for clinics such as wound care, diabetes, oncology, but it would have been easier to get a job as an remote outpatient coder  than a remote inpatient coder.  My personal goals were to be an inpatient coder. 

I'm a new coding student so am not currently coming from the point of view requested; however, I am a home-based medical transcriptionist and work for a company whose coding division employs coders, coding QA specialists, coding team leads and assistants, etc., who are all home based.

Also, I previously typed for a company who employed coders who work from home.

Just adding my 2 cents.

I've been working remote for many years. The facility I work for is a large teaching hospital that covers the full spectrum of inpatient and outpatient coding.

We have a very strong coding team and new coders are assigned a trainer to work with them (in person for a few days and then via phone) until they are comfortable with our process and with working remote. The facility prefers to hire experienced coders but will hire coders with no experience as long as they hold a CCS and CPC. Our "no experience" coders have done very well with this type of system.

Every facility will have a different way of running a coding department whether it's on site or remote. Being on site does not guarantee that you will get your questions answered immediately just as working remote doesn't mean you are isolated with no one to answer questions.

For example, you will find some coding departments where asking and answering questions is encouraged in the office and some departments that you sit in your cubicle and when you have a question you email it to your supervisor and put the chart on hold until you receive an answer.

It's best to remember that coding is coding and as long as you have a good department support system it doesn't matter if you work on site or remote.

Hi, Kim :)

I'm brand new to this program, so I'm no where near ready to start applying for coding jobs; my goal, though, is to work from home so that I can stay with this little one of mine.

Would you mind sharing the name of the company for which you work? I'd love to look into the company at the appropriate time, & would definitely appreciate it!

Thanks!

Salathia

Great answers!  I hadn't expected to get such valuable answers on this question, but I'm sure glad we did.

Welcome, Salathia!  I am SO very glad that you got started before the Memorial Day weekend. I am so happy to see you already getting to know our students, graduates, and instructors. By the way, the instructors are also Andrews graduates. That's a requirement in order to be an instructor here. Our instructors know the program inside and out, and they know how it feels to be a student. 

Glad to have you as part of our Andrews family.

Salathia and All Other Module I, II, and III students:  I am very happy to have the opportunity to bring up this topic again. Some of you have heard it over and over again and it will be new information to some others.

You'll notice that the graduates typically don't give the names of the employers and you may wonder why.  There's no 'law' against it and they usually don't say that they aren't; they just don't. It's part of what you learn in the course. Don't mention the name of your employer until you are on the graduate board. Employers often don't really like being talked about unless they've authorized a job announcement, etc.

If anyone says something good, they will likely soon be drowning in applicants who aren't qualified. If it's bad, they aren't here to defend themselves. It's also proprietary. One company may not want the other to know what they are doing, and some of our graduates are in supervisory positions.

There are a few exceptions, but not many. When you graduate, for example, you'll get access to the Graduate message board where the employers' names are sometimes, but not always, mentioned. You will see some discussions there about whether they have part-time work or if they have any independent contractor work, outpatient or inpatient, or remote jobs.

At any rate, that's the reason you may not get an answer to your question yet, but you will, once you get to the graduate level. The answers you'll get here will be more general, for the reasons above.  Questions like these are very much encouraged so we can talk about things in a general or specific way, depending on the subject material.

Keep up the questions, all of you. I'd love to fill this forum with all sorts of threads full of information like this.  Keep it up, everyone!

Thank you! That makes a lot of sense!