America's Medical Coder Shortage is a Real and Serious Problem

by  Find-A-Code™
Dec 6th, 2023

There is no lack of blog posts and news articles detailing how America's healthcare sector is grappling with shortages of doctors, nurses, etc. But did you know that the shortages are not limited to clinicians? They exist industry wide. And it includes medical coders.

To put it another way, America's medical coder shortage is a real and fundamental problem. The American Medical Association (AMA) estimates the current shortage at about 30%. That is pretty significant. For every 100 coders currently working, healthcare providers need an additional 30. So what's going on?

The Good News

If there is any good news to be found in the current struggle for certified medical codes, it is this: the majority of the shortages faced by healthcare providers are not the result of people leaving the profession. They aren't the result of attrition, either. Rather, healthcare providers are facing a shortage of coders because of growth.

At least one organization, Baptist Health Medical Group, told the AMA that they are not having a turnover problem with medical coders. Instead, the group has experienced significant growth over the last several years. They have grown faster than they have been able to hire new coders to support that growth.

By contrast, healthcare providers are facing clinician shortages partly because doctors and nurses are leaving the profession. Clinical jobs are known for long hours and plenty of stress. Clinicians are burned out and looking to move on. All that plays into the industry's inability to encourage young people to go into clinical practice. Fortunately, the same conditions do not seem to exist within medical coding.

The Bad News

We cannot talk about the good news without discussing the bad. Here it is – recruitment isn't keeping up with industry growth. America's medical coder shortage is directly linked to the challenging task of convincing young people to pursue coding as a career. But that is not because the career is a dead end one that doesn't pay well. The opposite is actually true.

It could be that recruitment is suffering due to a lack of educational opportunities. It could also be that young people simply do not have the money to earn their certifications. But beyond that, medical coding and billing have both become highly specialized over the last decade or so. It is one thing to become a general coder; it's another thing to get one's initial certification and then go on to specialize in one particular area or another.

When young people think of going off to college, they tend to think of well-known careers like engineering, software development, education, and so forth. How many of them even give medical coding a single thought? And among those who do, how many dismiss medical coding because it doesn't seem as glamorous or exciting as another career option?

An Important and Rewarding Career

Regardless of the reasons why recruitment is not keeping up with growth, we do know that many medical coders with decades of service under their belts find it to be an important and rewarding career. Yes, there are tens of thousands of medical codes to deal with. There are guidelines to learn. And every year, most code sets are subject to updates. There is a lot to learn and manage.

At the same time, a competent medical coder adds tremendous value to a healthcare provider's business. They also help improve the quality of care through more consistent and accurate medical records. If more young people were aware of just how valuable medical coding is, perhaps the current shortage would not be nearly as profound.