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Paul Mannet

Reasons To Pursue An Associate’s Degree In Ministry

By Paul Mannet

Associates degree in ministry

An associates degree in ministry can be a good first step into formal training if you’ve already done some church work and want to start on a path of making ministry a more important part of your life. A Christian church “career” is something people define in many different ways. Some students want to become missionaries and bring a biblical message to the countries all over the world, while others with a gift for public speaking might be attracted to the idea of becoming the minister on a large church, a goal that would require more education in most cases (more on bachelor’s degrees in ministry here). Quite a few devout Christians choose a third path of doing ministry on a part time basis at a smaller church, without leaving their day jobs in the secular world (an approach that’s sometimes called “bi-vocational” ministry, for which there are actually specific degree programs). In a life-long career in the Church, it’s actually possible that a person might do all three of these things for a period of time. A common thread through all, however, is that the choices on this path are generally based more on a sense of personal calling than on earning a great deal of money.

A Degree In Two Parts
There are two main study elements involved in an associate’s degree (generally a 60 – 66 credit program) in this area. First comes a series of basic courses in communication, English and math (in some cases) that can actually be useful in any career. The second part of your studies will focus much more intensively on theology and the specific skill set of an effective minister. Your more academic classes will cover the old and new testaments of The Bible, along with the historical and philosophical questions they raise. The more skills-based part of your study will cultivate your growth as a minister by making you more comfortable with speaking in public, communicating your message to people who come from cultures other than your own and conveying your beliefs to people who don’t necessarily share your viewpoint. While all these elements can all be challenging, ministry students often get a level of personal satisfaction and intellectual engagement from these courses that’s not enjoyed by students in many other majors.

An associate degree is likely to make you a viable candidate to start as either the minister of smaller rural church, which may be a non-paying position, or as the director of a youth ministry or other specialized office within a larger church. Missionaries who go abroad are compensated for their travel and living expenses and sometimes get a small stipend. But they mainly do the work for the satisfaction of spreading a Christian message while getting a chance to see the world. If you have a goal of becoming a pastor in a larger church, a job that can pay a more substantial salary but requires more advanced skills in many areas, you’ll probably need to follow your associate’s degree with a bachelors and even a master’s degree. Don’t forget, however, that no matter what degree you have, it’s very important that you can demonstrate that you have already done considerable work in a church environment, either on a paid or volunteer basis. Ministry is a career where having a strong sense of personal commitment and mission is always considered as important, if not more important, than educational qualifications.

Online Ministry Student Advantage
Just about all online schools promote the idea that digital learning is great for adults who are trying to earn a degree at the same time as they hold down a job and attend to their families. But ministry schools tend to be particularly helpful to adult learners, because they’re very aware that ministry study is something people may pursue with a goal of ultimately getting a job that is a part-time pursuit on top of their “day job,” and that others sign up for theological and ministry studies purely for their own personal enhancement. As such, ministry schools are often particularly flexible about allowing students to transfer in credits earned previously, pause and then restart their schooling and creating their own schedules.

Denominational Choices
Every individual church and every denomination within the Christian world is unique. It’s good to keep a few basic guidelines in mind if you are hoping that your associate’s ministry degree is going to open doors for you to get a job. First, if you want to become either a Roman Catholic priest or lay worker, it’s advisable that you attend a Catholic college. Catholics tend to see themselves as apart from Evangelicals, Baptists and many other Christians, and they tend to want people who’ve had a long-term association with Catholicism.

If you hope to get involved with a church run by Baptists or The Churches of Christ, it may give you an advantage to study at a school that has the appropriate affiliation. Happily, there are quite a few choices out there with both online and classroom degree programs in both areas. Where you want to work geographically can also make a difference. Southern churches tend to be particularly focused on the subdivisions within denominations. Many Southern Baptist churches, for example, will probably welcome someone with a degree from a seminary like Liberty University, one of the largest religious schools and a real powerhouse in online education. But a Baptist church with a more Calvinistic perspective may take a negative view of training from Liberty. Dispensational churches, which do not insist on a strict literal reading of the Bible, may shy away from a candidate who has studied at a very non-dispensational seminary.

Important Choices
Finally, there are many churches that will gladly hire ministers who have been trained at schools that are completely non-denominational. The best approach, wherever possible, is to speak with someone at a particular church where you might want to work before you commit to any degree program. The information you get may have a profound effect on which school you choose.

Filed Under: Christian

Medical Coding Certifications

By Paul Mannet

Medical Coding Certificate Levels

Both The American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC) and The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) are reputable organizations, though some say that AAPC is more oriented to physician-office coding and AHIMA is more hospital or “in-patient” focused.

Tests for the following three certificates are administered by AHIMA. If you meet the requirements for a certificate, you can apply to take a test in your area at AHIMA’s website.

Certified Coding Associate (CCA)

If you have recently completed a coding degree, the CCA certification gives you the first credential you need to work in a medical environment. It’s an entry-level certification you can use to start building your career on. To be eligible for the CCA test, you need a high school diploma. It’s recommended, but not required, that you have at least six month’s experience working in a medical office or a certificate from a coding program. Virtually all coding certifications require you to have a good understanding of the Health Information Portability and Accounting Act (HIPAA), the federal law that protects patient rights and guarantees that their medical records will be kept confidential.

Certified Coding Specialist (CCS)

This is a more advanced certification, which proves you can operate the current state-of-the-art coding systems – the ICD-9-CM and the surgery system of the CPT (Current Procedural Terminology). This credential can get you a higher-paying job, but it requires that you understand a good deal about pharmacology and medical terminology. Eligibility requirements include experience in a hospital-based coding environment and course study in physiology and pharmacology, along with other medical specialties.

Certified Coding Specialist-Physician-based (CCS-P)

Provides you with certification to work on physician’s offices, clinics and other treatment environments. For this, you need to be familiar not just with ICD-9-CM and CPT, but also the Level 2 coding systems known as HCPCS (Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System). Eligibility requirements include experience in a physician-based coding environment using codes in surgery anesthesiology and other specialties, and some course study in anatomy, physiology and other medical specialties.

AAPC’s certifications are slightly different. They offer:

Certified Professional Coder (CPC)

This is for coders working in physician’s offices, either private or hospital-based, home health agencies or with auditors of insurance claims.

Certified Professional Coder – Hospital (CPC-H)

For coding in hospital outpatient billing, ambulatory surgical centers and other outpatient centers.

Certified Professional Coder – Payer (CPC-P)

A new certification created in 2009, primarily for claims managers at insurance companies and auditors.

Certified Interventional Radiology Cardiovascular Coder (CIRCC)

An advanced certification for coders working in radiology and cardiovascular charging and coding.

For information on testing and qualifications for AAPC’s certifications, visit their website.

Online Medical Coding Degrees

Medical coding is definitely an area where you can benefit from an online degree. Typical courses involved in an online coding degree include human anatomy, medical terminology, computer fundamentals, procedural terminology, CP coding, ICD-9-CM coding and pathology.

Filed Under: Allied

Learning HIPAA To Work As A Medical Coder

By Paul Mannet


A key skill you need to be a medical coder in any hospital or physician’s office is an understanding of a federal law known as the Health Information Portability and Accounting Act or “HIPAA.” Designed to protect the rights of patients and insure that their medical records are kept confidential, the HIPAA governs how a medical provider must respond when a patient asks for his or her medical records, and how any request for patient information from an insurance company must be handled.

The past few decades have seen an explosion in the complexity of medical care, medical record keeping and information needs of insurance companies. The HIPAA covers any medical information that a doctor, nurse or therapist places in a patient’s file, including billing information, history and diagnostic notes and even conversations between medical specialists about the patient.

Avoiding Problems
To comply with HIPAA, you’ll need to know the unique identification codes for medical procedures, the tech safeguards for privacy, electronic signature rules and more. Failing to follow HIPAA rules can damage your career and even result in sanctions against the doctor or clinic you are working for, so it’s important to learn them completely. Patients who feel their privacy rights are violated can file a complaint through the U S Department of Health and Human Services.

A few key points you will study about HIPAA in virtually any medical coding degree program:

  • Patient information that’s protected by HIPAA include patient’s name, diagnosis, medications prescribed and procedures done.
  • Medical providers must give patients their medical records within 30 days of a patient asking for them.
  • Life insurance companies, lending banks and other companies can only be given a patient’s medical information if the patient signs an authorization form giving permission to have the data released.
  • Physicians, hospitals and other care providers can only share patients’ information while they are actually treating them.
  • Patients have a right to ask that all communications with a doctor or hospital are confidential. In many cases that means the patient can ask a doctor to call them to discuss diagnosis and treatment at home rather than at work where part of a conversation may be overheard.
  • A privacy notice must be given to all patients by healthcare providers telling them how their health information may be used, and the patients must sign it.

Working From Home
From the standpoint of your own work situation, it’s also good to be very up to date on HIPAA, because it governs how much of your coding work you can do from your home. Many medical coders enjoy an ability to do some or all of their work from home on a computer. But in order to do so, you must understand the very strict rules that exist about taking any protected health information on a patient out of a doctor’s office to code it in from another location.

More on getting the right degree and certification to become a medical coder here.

Filed Under: Allied

The Associate Degree – Medical Assistant: Salary & Job Benefits

By Paul Mannet

medical coding jobs and degrees
Virtually every hospital, doctors’ office, clinic and other health facility across the U.S. has a need to hire good medical assistants. And labor statistics indicate that demand for medical assistants is growing fast, and will continue to expand more than most other job categories for years to come (in fact, the government says that this will be the third fastest-growing profession in the U.S. from now through 2014). The job description can vary, with assistants in small clinics or physician’s offices doing both record keeping and direct patient care, while those in much larger practices tend to specialize either in clinical work or medical administrative assistant duties behind the front desk.

Job Options: More Focus On Degrees
This is a job path where having the associate degree for medical assistants is much more important than it was just 10 years ago. There are really two tiers of medical assistant jobs – the lower paying ones in general practice facilities, and the higher salary jobs that exist in more specialized practices. Doctors and administrators in specialty fields have become much more picky about hiring medical assistants with degrees – the Associate of Science Degree for Medical Assistants is the best known one. They can afford to do this because there’s currently an oversupply of job applicants with only “on the job” training as medical assistants, but fewer people who have a degree. Even medical assistants who have a great deal of hands-on experience in busy specialties like Family Medicine, Podiatry and Urgent Care now complain that they can’t get the best jobs if they don’t have the Associates Degree.

An Associate of Science Degree in Medical Assisting will prepare you to take one of two national certification tests, the CMA (Certified Medical Assistant) or the RMA (Registered Medical Assistant). More below on who gives these exams and how you can take one.

Basics of the Associate of Science in Medical Assisting Degree
Medical assistants can work in the administrative side of a practice or more directly with patients. Most AS degrees in medical assisting prepare you for both clinical and administrative work, with training in patient communications, billing, processing insurance claims and scheduling appointments, as well as functions that you might perform under the supervision of a doctor or other practitioner, like taking vital signs, doing electrocardiograms, giving injections and, in some cases, even assisting in minor in-office surgical procedures.

Medical assistant schools typically require 60 credits in their AS degree programs. The training generally takes two years, though some full-time students can complete them on a more accelerated schedule. These degrees are offered by a wide variety of schools from community colleges to major universities, and there are many options to get your AS medical assistant degree either entirely or partly online. If you have long-range plans to move up in the medical professions, it’s good to be aware that some of the courses you take in a degree program of this type may be transferrable to a bachelor degree program later on, but many of them will not.

Here’s a sampling of typical courses in an AS Medical Assisting degree program, which will generally mix topics that are directly career-related with general education subjects:

    • Clinical Procedures
    • Medical Terminology
    • Anatomy, Radiography
    • Medical Office Management
    • Lab Procedures
    • Behavioral/Social Science
    • Psychology
    • Communications
    • Computers
    • English Composition
    • American Literature
    • Intro & Intermediate Algebra
    • College Mathematics
    • Statistics
    • Intro & Advanced Biology

Earnings
The national median salary for medical assistants in 2010 was about $28,000, with more experienced assistants earning over $40,000 per year (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Primary care physicians (family practitioners, internists) treat a large volume of patients, but are not able to pay top dollar to their assistants. The higher paying medical assistant positions are working for doctors in allergy, dermatology, otolaryngology or other highly-compensated specialties. Private medical practices generally pay more than hospitals.

Getting Certified
When you have completed your degree, you’ll want to get your certification as a medical assistant before you go job hunting. Here are the two most widely recognized tests for a credential:
Certified Medical Assistant (CMA)
You must complete and accredited medical assistant degree program before taking this test, which is administered by the Certifying Board of the American Association of Medical Assistants. You are required to complete an approved “externship” before taking the test, which is administered at centers across the US three times each year. For information on how to apply for the test, visit AAMA’s site here. Keep in mind that you must renew this credential every five years.
Registered Medical Assistant
The RMA certification is offered by the American Medical Technologists (AMT), and it’s done via a computer test that’s done frequently throughout the US and Canada. For more information, visit AMT’s site here. After you are certified, you must show documentation to AMT every three years that you have taken continuing education credits to keep your knowledge current. Finally, it’s worth keeping in mind that once you have your associate’s degree as a medical assistant, you can always go back to college later on and complete a bachelor’s degree in just two more years that can lead you into nursing or other areas of health care.

Filed Under: Allied

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