About Our Program

The Medical Coding Program is designed to prepare individuals to understand coding principles, guidelines, medical terminology and regulatory changes for coding. The program is designed to offer a variety of learning experiences including classroom lecture and workplace experience when possible.

Many courses in this program are based in Highland’s individualized Office Technology Lab. The lab is staffed with an instructor to assist students with course work. Students are able to proceed through many courses at their own pace and at times that are convenient to both the traditional student and the person wishing to train for a new field or upgrade their skills. Certain required courses may be waived or credit allowed through proficiency testing.

Nature of Work and Employment

Medical coders are professionals skilled in classifying medical data from patient records. These coders review patients’ records and assign numeric codes for each diagnosis and procedure. Coding accuracy is highly important to health care organizations because of its impact on revenues and describing health outcomes. Medical coders work at computer monitors for prolonged periods and most work full time. This is one of the few health occupations in which there is little or no direct contact with patients. Numerous career opportunities exist in hospitals, physician offices, clinics, home health agencies and other health care settings. Graduates are eligible to take the national medical coding exams for certification.

Requirements

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
Required Courses
ACCT 115	Computer Applications in Acct 2	2
ACCT 116	Intro to Payroll Accounting	2
ACCT 220	Quickbooks Accounting	2
INFT 105	Basic Keyboarding	1
INFT 122	Introduction to Windows 1	1
INFT 131	Beginning Microsoft Word 1	1
INFT 132	Intermediate Microsoft Word 1	1
INFT 133	Advanced Microsoft Word 1	1
INFT 135	PowerPoint 1	1
INFT 180	Intro to Information Systems 1	3
ITHC 101	Basic Medical Terminology I	1
ITHC 102	Basic Medical Terminology II 1	1
ITHC 103	Basic Medical Terminology III 1	1
ITHC 201	Medical Coding 1	4
ITHC 205	Adv Medical Coding-Hospital 1	2
ITHC 220	Anatomy for Info Tech 1	3
OFFT 162	Pre-Transcription Skills 1	1
OFFT 255	Office Procedures 1	4
Electives from any area		6
Select one of the following:		3
BUSN 121	Intro to Business
BUSN 124	Introduction to Small Business 1
Select one of the following:		3
BUSN 125	Math of Business 1
BUSN 221	Business Statistics 1
MATH 111	Technical Math 1
higher level math course 1
Select one of the following:		2
OCED 290	Workplace Experience 1
INFT/OFFT Any INFT or OFFT
Required Rel. Courses
SPCH 191	Fund of Speech Communication	3
Select one of the following:		3
BUSN 141	Business Communications 1
COMM 101	Technical Communications 1
ENGL 121	Rhetoric and Composition I 1
Select one of the following:		3
COMM 214	Bus/Tech Writing 1
ENGL 122	Rhetoric and Composition II 1
Select one of the following:		3
BUSN 225	Personal Finance
ECON 111	Principles of Economics I
ECON 112	Principles of Economics II
Select one of the following:		2-3
PSY 160	Psychology of Human Relations
PSY 161	Introduction to Psychology 1
Total Hours		60-61

¹

Course has a prerequisite. See course description.

²

Knowledge of Microsoft Excel is recommended for this course.

Of the available General Education courses required for this program, at least three credits need to be completed with a Diversity designation (see advisor).

Program Outcomes

Students who complete this program of study will be able to:

• Apply computing knowledge appropriate to the medical office environment.
• Solve problems in the medical office environment.
• Demonstrate professional behavior and ethical conduct.
• Demonstrate appropriate social and communication skills.
• Utilize data to help in the decision-making process

Program Contacts

Call Highland at 815-235-6121 for the following program contacts:

• Dr. Matt Magee, Dean of Agriculture, Business & Technology
• Carol Engelkens, Information Systems Faculty
• Beth Groshans, Student Advisor