Would you like to work in the health care field in an administrative role? Are you interested in data analysis? If so, read on to find out more about a career as a health information technician!
What are the Duties of a Health Information Technician?
As a health information technician, you gather patient data, evaluate its accuracy, and organize the data to make it easily accessible to patients, doctors and insurance companies. Medical history, symptom information, test results, diagnoses and related data make up the vast archive of information in a patient’s medical record. You may assess medical records for completeness and correspond with other medical professionals to obtain extra information as needed.
Because most technicians are employed in a hospital setting, you will need to become increasingly familiar with electronic health care records, which are beginning to be used with more and more frequency. Additionally, there are several specialty areas within the health information technician field, such as cancer registry and health information coding.
What Is My Occupational Outlook?
Employment opportunities in the health information technician field are excellent. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 172,600 technicians employed as of 2008; the number of available positions was expected to increase to 207,600 by 2018 (http://www.bls.gov). This is an estimated growth rate of 20% and is faster than the national average for all professions. The growth in this field is due to insurance companies demanding that medical treatments become more scrutinized and health information technicians having to keep more accurate and detailed records.
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Boston Reed College 