50 Cents Worth of Knowledge

As you all know, after begging and begging the doctor, he consented to send me to a medical coding class and at the completion of the medical coding class, he would give me a 50 cent/hour raise. Thinking that I was the one getting the sweet end of the deal, I was THRILLED with my negotiation skills.

Well, the first class was today and after fighting my tendency to want to be the teacher's pet (which I succeeded at without trying and even though the teacher doesn't exactly know my name, she calls me "BYU" due to the BYU sweatshirt I wore...the only problem was that for the first three times she called on me, she called me "YBU") and an insufferable know-it-all (apparently that position was already taken by the stupid girl wearing tapered white jeans), I settled in for the acutal learning part.

What I didn't know is that being a certified medical coder (which those in the medical field know as a "CMC") is basically like being in medical school. The first four hours was spent on medical terminology - prefixes, suffixes, and root words, all of which, are naturally, LATIN (is there anyway they could be Japanese? I mean, I've spent the last four bloody years struggling with that language. There's just no way I can handle learning a new one). She kept giving us words and asking what they meant and then, when no one could answer (no, not even the five women who have been doing medical coding for TWENTY-FIVE YEARS), she would raise her voice and say, "OH COME ON YOU GUYS! THIS IS NOT THAT HARD!"

Not that hard? Not that hard to whom? To you? To someone who teaches about coding/medical terminology and apparently loves it more than life itself?? I wanted to stand up and say, "I don't even care about coding! I'm applying for other jobs and as soon as I get one, I'm going to quit and then I'll never have to worry about this crap again!"

The entire afternoon we messed around with the ICD-9 book. This is the 1,200 page book which includes all 30,000 medical codes. Luckily, I have a little experience with it and I am more than proud to say that I whipped out the workbook pages like it was nothing (no thanks to the girl sitting next to me, who kept whining and complaining because they didn't give her enough time to finish).

We then moved on to "E-codes" and "V-codes". I have no idea what that means, but I am now aware that there is actually a medical code for a broken arm resulting from falling out of your animal-drawn vehicle due to the discharge of a firearm. No, I'm not kidding (you can see how well I was paying attention).

At the end of the day, we were assigned homework...thrilling homework wherein we get to look up even more codes and medical conditions!! Oh, and also, at the end of a course, we have to take a SIX HOUR test. I don't think that I've spent six hours total in my entire life taking tests.

Even though it is kind of nice to be learning SOMETHING again (instead of sitting around in a stupor), I'm not sure that it's worth the extra 50 cents.