EDUCATION

HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT COURSES COMPLETED AT SINCLAIR

COMMUNITY COLLEGE:

Medical Terminology: Basic prefixes, roots and suffixes; terminology including
anatomic, diagnostic, symptomatic, procedural, eponymic terms and standard
abbreviations required for a working knowledge and understanding of the language
of medicine.

Drug Classification for Coding: An overview of the major drug classifications,
common drugs in each class, conditions for which drugs are administered and their
general effects to assist medical coders in analyzing health care documentation for
coding and reimbursement applications.

Introductory Medical Office Coding: Introduction to principles, guidelines, and
conventions for assigning ICD-9-CM or ICD-10-CM diagnostic codes and CPT
procedure codes to patient encounters for physician services.

Medicolegal & Ethics in Healthcare Records: Evaluation of health care records as
legal documents; special emphasis on policies and procedures concerning releases
of medical information and protecting patient confidentiality; principles and
organization of the judicial system; healthcare fraud and abuse and Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) regulations. Ethical issues in
healthcare settings are addressed.

Alternative Health Records & Registries: Organization and operation of a
hospital cancer program emphasizing registry case finding, accession, indexing,
abstracting and follow-up of cancer data. This class focuses on the purposes, uses,
and handling of health information, departmental and facility administration,
licensing and accreditation requirements and introduction to payment systems in
long-term care and home health care.

Ambulatory Coding: Introduction to principles, guidelines and conventions for
assigning ICD-9-CM or ICD_10-CM diagnostic codes and CPT procedure codes to
patient encounters for outpatient facility services. Students should possess
proficiency in basic medical terminology and human anatomy and physiology.

Quality Improvement, Statistics, & Research: Organization and analysis of data
in healthcare quality programs including quality assessment and monitoring,
utilization and risk management, and medical staff credentialing. Theory and
application of healthcare statistics including data definitions, computation of
formulae and research principles.

Health Information Resource Management: Planning, organizing, staffing,
budgeting, and analysis of management systems along with job standards and

performance evaluations emphasizing development of supervisory management,

leadership, and communication skills.

Healthcare Data in Reimbursement: Organization of health care delivery system
including managed care and capitation. Theory and use of reimbursement systems
such as Diagnostic Related Groups, Ambulatory Payment Classifications, Resource-
based Relative Value Scale. Discussion of data flow from admission to billing and
analysis of casemix. In addition, other external forces, such as Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act and Recovery Audit Contractors are discussed.

Inpatient Coding: Introduction to principles and coding conventions for using ICD-
9-CM and/or ICD-10-CM and ICD-20-PCS for coding inpatient records. Students
should process proficiency in medical terminology and human anatomy and
physiology.

Healthcare Information Systems:: An in-depth look at the use of information
systems technology in the health care delivery system. Includes information
security, electronic clinical systems and health records.

Professional Practice Experience: Practical application of health information
management process, including health information retrieval, qualitative and
quantitative analysis of health data, record completion by practioners, release of
information, document scanning, revenue cycle functions, coding, statistical
reporting, hospital-wide and HIM department functions utilizing medical data. Ten
directed practice hours per week at an approved off-site location.

Health Information Management Capstone: A variety of specially designed
projects, student oral presentations, case studies, simulations, interviewing,
resumes and two mock accreditation exams.





MY PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE EXPERIENCE
My last semester of college I had to do an internship for my capstone class. The
internship had to be within the Health Information Management Department and
had a requirement of at least 120 on site and 20 hours virtual. I landed a wonderful
internship at Bethesda Arrow Springs Hospital, which is located in Lebanon, Ohio. I
worked beside many professional employees who were very anxious to share their
knowledge with me. I have gained so many skills since this internship such as
learning how to use Epic, prep, scan, and index documents into the patients medical
records, as well as introduce me to professional people skills. Having the
opportunity to do such a wonderful internship has better prepare me to begin a
future with the Health Information Management field.