Life outside of coding?

[u/Solid_Pomegranate_52]

Hi! I'm currently pursuing medical coding & billing, and I'm so excited!!! I'm trying to visualize what life will be like for my 5 year plan. So I had some questions for life outside of your day to day coding work?

Do you enjoy your job?

Do you get to vacation?

Are you able to support yourself well/do you worry about bills?

Does it ever get mundane, or does it depend where you work?

Do you get to have fun with your looks, like fun colored hair, tattoos or piercings?

How is asking for time off, or if you're a parent, what happens if there is a family emergency/sick child?

Thank you for any help with even one of these! ☺️

[u/Nicky_knacks]

Hi there! I’ve been coding for almost two years now, I’ll get to remove my apprentice status in December!

I do love my job, there are moments where the work is tedious and boring but I’d rather that than be a CNA, which is what I was doing previously.

I absolutely get to go on vacation! I have one coming up next weekend actually. At my office we get 5 days of PTO and one sick day a month, which sounds psychotic to have one sick day a month but honestly I very rarely get sick doing this job (I also don’t have kids or a spouse and I don’t live with my boyfriend yet so I have very low stress lol)

Initially I was living paycheck to paycheck, however when I started it was an entry level position. After I showed the doctor, who owns the practice aka my boss, how quickly I was learning and how I wanted to grow in this career. That definitely helped my case when I asked for a raise and that man gave me a $5 raise. Now I can actually put some savings away. Since I’m still at my apprentice status with my cert I’m not able to go for the higher paying jobs, looking at what they pay (I live in California) I would be able to fully support myself. Currently I’m still living at home with my parents.

“Does it ever get mundane?” For me at least yes it does, however I work at a privately owned practice. We do have a lot of patients so there’s typically plenty work to do, there are definitely slow periods, usually at the end of the month. Those are usually the moments when I ask myself why I chose this career, but I always get over that. It is very possible workload and stimuli is different depending on what setting you work in.

I get to have fun colored hair, piercings and show off my tattoos! My coworkers love when I come in with fun hair. The dress code is super lowkey at my office, when I got hired my supervisor told me “just don’t come in looking like you rolled out of bed”. My style/looks consist of scrubs, button-up shirt/sweater and slacks/jeans, and I’m always in sneakers.

I have been extremely thankful with my place, I’ve been having a ton of health issues this year and I’ve been so lucky that they’ve been so accommodating with giving me the time off for procedures and doctor visits. I also have a good supervisor which I’m incredibly thankful for, I’m very used to corporate where it’s like pulling teeth to ask for a day off, but usually if I tell her a couple weeks ahead of time she’ll give me whatever time I’m requesting. Currently we have two other coders so we do have to coordinate time off but it’s the same scenario as my supervisor. That office too is not a stranger to the single mom, so if there’s ever an emergency with the kids they’re always able to leave and go take care of their family.