AA in Healthcare Reimbursement from Virginia College Online
What the School Says: Healthcare is an extremely complex and diverse field in the business world that steadily continues to expand and be in high demand in regards to employment opportunities. Healthcare reimbursement sectors are extremely important in many hospitals and doctor and medical offices. Virginia College Online offers students the opportunity to earn an associate degree in healthcare reimbursement that is focused on specialized training in medical billing and coding for health service reimbursement procedures. The associate degree program is a requirement of a total of 96 credit hours composed of general education courses, areas of concentration, and foundations. The foundation area of the degree, accounting for 12 credit hours, focuses on keyboarding and learning the basics, while the general education area, 24 credit hours, includes courses in communications, humanities and fine arts, mathematics, and social sciences. The area of concentration, accounting for 60 credit hours, includes courses in anatomy and physiology, medical law and ethics, medical coding and billing, advanced billing, and medical insurance applications. Financial aid options are available to students that qualify for assistance.
What We Say: Students that complete this program will have the knowledge and abilities to handle medical records, utilize medical and billing software, analyze financial and accounting data, and several other practices and techniques as they relate to the field. Graduates of this degree are prepared to find work in doctor and medical offices, hospital business offices, insurance claims offices, and healthcare consulting firms. Common jobs pursued by graduates in this field are medical transcriptionists, medical billing technicians and medical coding technicians. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, medical transcriptionists earned a median annual salary of $32,060 in 2008. Employment opportunities projected by the bureau estimated an increase of at least 11% in new jobs and availability by 2018 in medical transcriptionists. This information combined with the fact that the healthcare field continues to grow rapidly, makes a degree in the healthcare field beneficial.
