Pursuing a Career as a Health Information Specialist
You may be one of the 1.9 million people who have lost their jobs over the last four months and wondering if you can find a way to pursue training in a field that is more recession proof. One career choice you could make that would help ensure a more solid future is a health care information specialist.
What is a Health Care Information Specialist?
Health Care Information Specialists typically gather medical data; gather data about workloads, finance and insurance. It is their job to post and analyze this data to help provide data for physicians and physician's assistants to make sure that the care that is being provided to patients is planned carefully.
Is this a single level job?
There are a number of different job titles that are pertinent to Health Care Information Specialists and each has it's own set of training requirements that must be met and have different salary levels. The high end of these jobs is the Record Administrator who is responsible for supervising both record technicians and coding specialists. The salaries for this position range from $30k annually to $40k annually and require a bachelor's degree as well as a certification exam.
A records technician must typically have an associate's degree as well as a credentials exam and the salary ranges from $23K to 30K. Coding specialists typically learn on the job and minimally should have a high school diploma or GEED. Coding specialists may also find classes at community colleges or technical schools. The salary range for a coding specialist is $20K to 25K.
Job Opportunities
The job opportunities for a health care information specialist are varied and may include insurance companies, doctor's offices, clinics and hospitals. There may be other medical settings where these skills can be applied. The medical field has far fewer layoffs than most other fields since this is a field where job opportunities multiply as our society as a whole ages.
Training Opportunities
For some health care information specialist positions there are online courses that can be taken to help you become certified in your field. Study guides are readily available from a number of different sources on the internet as well. With the growing number of colleges who are offering the ability to study for both associates degrees as well as bachelors degrees online your training could take place entirely at home resulting in far lower costs for you.
Summary
If you are looking for a new career path or if you are just graduating high school, the health care information specialist field could be your career of choice.
