The medical field traditionally has operated with a lot of behind-the-scenes jobs, but the advent of both electronic health records and the Affordable Care Act has particularly spurred a rise in health information technology jobs, and some students in Gainesville are training for the challenge.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, some of the health care occupations that will increase the most are medical office specialists, medical records technicians, medical assistants and community health workers.
Already, support positions such as these account for 42 percent of the health care workforce, according to the College for America at Southern New Hampshire University.
Health information technology, or HIT, specialists perform roles such as entering patient data into electronic health records and making sure doctors enter the correct reimbursement codes for procedures.
Even small errors in such tasks can have serious implications — both financial and clinical.
“If the code is wrong, it could be fraudulent,” said Julie Shay, the director of HIT management programs at Santa Fe College. “If mental health codes are coded incorrectly, the impact could be big … with an epilepsy diagnosis, driver’s licenses are taken away.”
In last week’s end-of-semester class, Shay asked her students about the practicums or internships they undertook at several area institutions, from UF Health Psychiatric Hospital and the ACORN clinic serving rural patients, to Vitera Healthcare Solutions, a health care software company based in Tampa.
“For me, it’s a retraining program,” said Mark Wooten, 56, who has worked in health care institutions for several years, in food administration.
