There are tons of women looking to work from home and not everyone wants to have a business that involves retail sales. If you’ve been at your search for a work at home business or career for any length of time, you’ve likely heard that there are telecommuting positions in medical coding, as well as opportunities to open your own medical coding business and work from home.

Medical coders work with doctor’s offices, hospitals and many other service types to code medical documents with numbers for insurance and billing purposes. The growth in the medical coding job market is expected to grow at a much higher pace than most industries over the next eight years and with an average income of over $25,000 in 2004, it is no wonder that this has been a big interest of women looking to work from home.

In addition, medical coding is an opportunity with many options. From being employed outside the home, to telecommuting for an employer from home, to telecommuting for a freelance medical coding agency to owning your own medical coding business that could one day blossom and allow you to even employ other medical coders from home. The medical coding career has numerous options to fit any mom’s career desires.

But not just anyone can be a medical coder. It does require training and skill and beware of any company that tries to tell you otherwise. As with many other industries in the work at home field, some of the “opportunities” you’ll find are scams designed to play on the intense desire many women, especially mothers, have to work from home.

There are various ways to educated to enter the medical coding field. Specialized degrees for medical coders are offered by many colleges as are qualified training courses that give you the education you need to get certified. Be sure to check out any program you look into (especially if it isn’t at a college and is instead offered by a private company) before you shell out any money to get involved.

So how do you know what the scams are and how do you “check out” programs offering medical coding training or opportunities? One way is to network within the community. Visit the websites of the American Academy of Professional Coders and the AACCA. You can also find books relating to the medical coding career on Amazon and well-reviewed e-books on the topic such as the Medical Coding Career Guide.

Another way is to research, which can be done for free. You can use sites like those above as a starting point. By searching in Google, Yahoo and MSN you will find many sources of information. It may take you a few weeks to compile a decent amount of information, but you’ll be better off for doing so before you spend any money working towards this career.

If you don’t have time to research – or are impatient – you can find information at the resources above. Whatever you do, don’t shell out money to any opportunities before understanding the industry and checking out the program with professional organizations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

R. Hoffman is a long time work at home mom with a highly successful business consisting of numerous websites. When she’s not glued to her laptop, she juggles the needs of her three active children and travels whenever possible. She can be reached through It’s a WAHM Thing – she’s not sure what the final product will be, but welcomes input!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 6:24 am and is filed under Jill's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.