Learn About Health Information Technician, Medical Records Technician Schools, Training, Jobs, and Careers

What is a Health Information Technician?
Medical records are so important to health care facilities. It is how they keep tab on all treatments and bills associated with each patient. This is so important that it has attracted the attention of President Obama. The president wants to digitize medical records. It is believed that doing so will help cut the cost of the ever rising medical costs.

This will fall in the lap of health information technicians or medical records technicians as they are sometimes called. It is their job to accurately and comprehensively organize medical records for each patient. In a normal work day, the medical records technician may do some or all of the following:

1. Code patients symptoms, diseases, diagnosis, and treatment
2. Transcribe patients records to understandable and simplified information for the general public
3. Ensure that all required and necessary forms are available
4. Safeguard patients records
5. Ensure confidentiality of patients records
6. Support physicians, nurses, and other medical staff in evaluating quality healthcare
7. Follow rules and regulations when releasing patient records
8. Store and retrieve information from microfilms
9. Use computer to tabulate and analyze data
10. Participate in survey and research to improve healthcare
11. Help control medical cost
12. Work on improving medical information systems
13. Etc.

We must point out that the health information technician must be cognizant of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In fact being cognizant of the act is not enough, the technician must follow it to the T. Doing otherwise will be breaking the law.

How to Become a Health Information Technician:
To become a medical records tech, you should first finish high school or obtain your GED. The courses that can help in high school are data processing, office procedures, computer skills, health education, etc.

After this, you then apply to a school that offers the health information technology program. You need a minimum of associate degree in health information technology. The associate degree should take about 2 years to complete. You can look forward to taking classes like:

a. Health and Hospital Statistics
b. Legal Issues in Healthcare
c. Medical Records System
d. Anatomy and Physiology
e. Healthcare Information Management System
f. Recordkeeping Procedures
g. Data Processing
h. Etc.

After graduation, you need to be registered and certified. You can do so by taking and passing the certification examination given by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). This will give you the title of Registered Health Information Technician (RHIT).

Health Information Technician Salary:
Medical records techs make good pay. The national average pay is $38,000 per year. Their salary can go as high as $45,000 per year. This depends on your location, education, and level of responsibility.

Health Information Technician School:
We know of a good school with the health information technology program. The school is ITT Technical Institute. You need to check them out. You can do so by following this link and be a step closer to earning $45,000 per year.

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