Last month, we began a scholarship campaign with AAPC to provide several $1,000 and $500 scholarships to those seeking a certification in the healthcare field. Below, hear from a handful of the $1,000 scholarship winners about why they want to work in healthcare and how an AAPC certification will help them reach their goals!
Harmony V.
Why are you interested in joining the healthcare field?
I’ve been in healthcare for about 16 years now. Prior to that I was in mortgage, and was getting laid off left and right due to market drops. My very first job in healthcare was front office for an MRI facility. I had no medical experience or schooling except for growing up with my dad who was an anesthesiologist. I knew it was the field I wanted to be in. I had high hopes and great expectations for myself. I was young and decided I wanted to go to medical school to become a pediatric cardiology trauma surgeon. Those dreams were ripped from me when I first started getting sick back then. Over the years I’ve tried different areas in medical. I got an EKG tech certification, biomedicine certification, medical assisting, and now I am almost finished with CPC. I know that because of my disease I’ll never be able to for fill my dreams of medical school, and I’m OK with that, because I know doing what I’m doing is not only essential, but beneficial for everyone involved. I still feel like I have a purpose and I still feel like I’m helping others even if I’m not front lines.
How with this certification from AAPC help you grow in your career?
It would put me in a place where I have the flexibility and capability of being independent and being part of a community of well-trusted and highly sought-after individuals. Not being tied down to a low-paying, dead-end office where I was being taken advantage of and treated as a lump of coal when I know I’m worth more. Not just financially, but mentally and emotionally. Employers who don’t care about their employees are fine with mediocre work. I want more than that. I want a career, I want independence, I want appreciation. I know that working hard for certification gives the respect that is required to deal and for an above and beyond job.
Laura C.
Why are you interested in joining the healthcare field?
I am an RN with nine years of experience. I have worked in nursing, management, quality improvement, risk and compliance, and performance improvement. I worked in a primary care Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) for eight and a half years and saw the benefit of the CPC credential to my peers working in billing, coding, referrals, health informatics, and management. I believe it is a skill and credential that would be greatly beneficial to operations and to understanding how the whole system works, as you cannot affect change until you understand the system. I started a CPC course with AAPC, and I believe this is what gave me the opportunity to take a job in an Independent Physician Association (IPA) that is in a Clinically Integrated Network (CIN), where I have now worked for six months. I am still working on my CPC course and have had to pay for a one-month extension already. It has proved more difficult than I hoped to work full-time and complete a course at the same time. I am currently pregnant with a baby due in July 2021. After a year and a half of infertility, we are so excited to add another child to our family! I am hoping to take the CPC exam before this baby comes, but my confidence is wavering in my ability to finish the course material and successfully pass the exam by July. A scholarship would help me pay for additional course extensions and pay for the exam if I need to delay it.
How with this certification from AAPC help you grow in your career?
I believe AAPC CPC certification would allow me to make a bigger impact in healthcare. In the future I hope to be working in healthcare operations or health insurance. Starting my CPC course to get to that place has been part of my five-year plan. I believe an understanding of billing and coding and a CPC certification would make me an asset in these areas. I want to be able to affect healthcare in a big way, and I have seen a need for this skill set in patient care in my primary care experience and in population health in my CIN experience. I believe having the knowledge and credentials a CPC certification provides would give me the opportunity to have a seat at the table with big decision makers.
Letitia C.
Why are you interested in joining the healthcare field?
I would like to be certified as a CPMA, as that is the next step in my career journey. Right now I am seeking a CPC and CPB. If I can get a CPMA, it would qualify me for a business office manager position at my current job, where I am solely developing the Third Party Billing program. We are a non-profit Urban Indian Center serving the low-income Native American community of Salt Lake City. These people often have nowhere to go for quality healthcare. The Urban Indian Center is developing a clinic to help low-income Native Americans. I could use ALL of the education that I can get! The Erban Indian Center of Salt Lake and the community that we serve would greatly benefit from my journey towards CPMA certification.
How with this certification from AAPC help you grow in your career?
It would make me a business office manager, and it would enable our facility to move away from being reliant on grant monies. We are seeking accreditation with AAAHC and one day hope to apply for the HRSA program. We need all of the qualifications that we can get.
Katrina F.
Why are you interested in joining the healthcare field?
I am interested in joining the healthcare field for two reasons. The first reason is that I deeply admire my younger sister Tiffany, who has dedicated exceptional time, focus, and dedication within the healthcare field, all while being a single mother of two young boys, ages 12 years-old and seven months old. The second reason stems from watching her grow and expand her knowledge and experience over her 16 years of being an exceptional nurse, nurse educator, and many other positions within her field. It is the kind of flexibility, devotion, and ever-growing opportunities. The kinds of opportunities and flexibilities that I hope to obtain in a more meaningful and evolving career within the healthcare spectrum.
I currently do not work in the healthcare field. However, having worked in telecommunications for the past 23 years, opportunities for growth within the field are limited. For the past three years, I have dedicated my efforts to getting trained in medical billing and medical coding. Unfortunately, I made the wrong choice when it came to with whom I did the training. I went with a company that I could better afford. However, the training proved to be inadequate.
I was going through a divorce, in the middle of selling my home, while trying to afford an apartment. Money was quite thin to say the least. I was still paying debts, and the existing tuition bills from gaining my bachelor’s degree in human resource management. Eventually, I was no longer able to afford my apartment and had to move in with my parents. Shortly afterward, I had to have major surgery, which forced me to pause my medical billing and coding training for two months while I healed. It began to sink in that I was paying for a bachelor’s degree, that I had been trying for at least a decade to actual use, that had no return for my troubles.
Having gone through all these hardships, with a heavy heart and lighter pockets, I later found that the training was not sufficient to have prepared me to pass any AAPC Certification Exam. However, despite all that I have endured, I have not and will not give up my pursuit of a career in medical billing and coding. Due to being low on funds for this endeavor, I know it will be a challenge, but I know I can succeed in a new career in the healthcare field. I know this because I have the absolute best person cheering me on, who has given me the best example of what a positive, dedicated, driven, and a devoted healthcare professional should be, and that is my younger sister, Tiffany. My proven determination, ongoing devotion, and focus on getting trained and later certified with AAPC, shows that I will make an excellent biller and/or coder in the healthcare field.
How with this certification from AAPC help you grow in your career?
An AAPC certification would give me a fresh start in a new industry that I can truly be proud of. I am convinced that certification for medical billing and/or coding with AAPC will mean that I have gone through proper, thorough, and relevant training that will ensure that I am sent out into the healthcare world prepared and competent. In my current industry of telecommunications, my work relies heavily on investigation, research, and comprehension of the provided resources. I am incredibly detailed oriented, focused, and meticulous when investigating and troubleshooting. These qualities have been severely underutilized in my many years of service in telecommunications and continue to be overlooked and often ignored.
Therefore, I feel that my current skills, although not currently used in the healthcare industry, can be equally as valuable and resourceful. Medical billing and coding takes a degree of focus, comprehension, and patience to effectively use given resources and materials. I am excited to find an industry that thrives under those who already command the same skill set I already embody and offers vast opportunities and exposure to hundreds of other career paths, that I may later find beneficial to me, and my desire to expand my knowledge and skillsets. The possibilities seem to be endless and could only be limited by how far I wish to go. By my desire and determination to push me beyond my perceived limits.
A certification with AAPC will mean more to me than just the certification and ability to work in a fast-growing and stable industry. For myself, it would also mean freedom. Certification and gained experience will also mean I can open the possibilities to living in a new city. Something I never thought I would be able to do with my current job. Although telecommunications companies are in every city, the same limits exist, and no real growth opportunities.
Moving to another city under my current company would mean a drastic cut in pay, with the same lack of career growth and opportunity. This is not a good or lucrative choice for me. I know that starting a new career in a new industry will indeed start out with a change in pay initially. However, I also know that this is a temporary stage in the evolution of my soon-to-be career. This does not deter me in the least bit. I am convinced that if I focus on gaining experience and exposure, over time I will be able to really start looking into options that may allow for me to explore the medical billing and coding fields outside of Rochester, NY, and finally start to explore freedom and possibilities that I have yet to have experienced.
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