Health Information Technology - Moraine Valley Community College

Health Information Technology from Moraine Valley Community College is a Campus Associate Health Administration degree that prepares you for a Healthcare career. Moraine Valley Community College?s Health Information Technology Program prepares you for a career that places you right where the expanding arena of health care meets the cutting edge of technology. Health information technicians ensure the quality of medical records by verifying their completeness, accuracy, and proper entry into computer systems. They may also use computer applications to analyze patient data for the purpose of improving patient care or controlling costs. Health information technicians (RHITs) often specialize in coding diagnoses and procedures in patient records for reimbursement and research. RHITs may serve as cancer registrars, compiling and maintaining data on cancer patients. Health Information Technology is a two-year associate?s degree program that integrates medical science, ICD-9 and CPT coding systems, computer technology, and health information management. Upon completion of the HIT Program, graduates will be eligible to write the national registration exam given by the American Health Information Management Association. Successfully completing this exam allows the graduate to earn the credential RHIT (Registered Health Information Technician). This program is intended to lead to employment. If you are considering transferring to a four-year college or university to obtain a bachelor?s degree using the courses from the program, make an appointment with an academic advisor to review your options. Employment Outlook? Health information technicians held about 159,000 jobs in 2004. About two out of five jobs were in hospitals. The rest were mostly in offices of physicians, nursing care facilities, outpatient care centers, and home health care services. Insurance firms that deal in health matters employ a small number of health information technicians to tabulate and analyze health information. Job prospects should be very good. Employment of health information technicians is expected to grow much faster than average for all occupations through 2014 because of rapid growth in the number of medical tests, treatments and procedures that will be increasingly scrutinized by health insurance companies, regulators, courts and consumers. Also, technicians will be needed to enter patient information into computer databases to comply with federal legislation mandating the use of electronic patient records . Nature of Work? Although most RHITs work in hospitals, you will also find them in a variety of other healthcare settings including office-based physician practices, long-term care facilities, home health agencies, mental health facilities, and public health agencies. In fact, employment opportunities exist for RHITs in any organization that uses patient data or health information such as pharmaceutical companies, law and insurance firms, and health product vendors. Related Job Title? Clinical coding specialist Physician practice manager Long-term care consultant Tumor registrar Trauma registrar Privacy officer Compliance officer Health Information department supervisor Performance improvement coordinator View more details on Moraine Valley Community College . Ask your questions and apply online for this program or find other related Health Administration courses.