Certified Electronic Health Records Specialist Expert

Hours: 455 / Access Length: 12 Months / Delivery: Online, Self-Paced

Course Overview:

It is so important for students entering the workforce to be well prepared for the challenges found there. For those students hoping for a career in health care, it is imperative that they have an understanding of electronic health records, medical billing and coding and how those records impact patient care and reimbursement. 

This course will cover:

• instructional tools needed to facilitate student learning of the electronic health record, billing and coding process
• administrative, clinical, and billing applications
• medical terminology systems
• review body structure and the main systems of the human body
• recognize, pronounce. build and spell words related to the body structure
• real-world situations 
• hands-on, practical experience working with the main coding manuals in the field, the ICD-10-CM and the CPT.
• master the legal, ethical, and regulatory concepts
• review patients’ records for timeliness, completeness, accuracy, and appropriateness of data
• organize and maintain data for clinical databases and registries
• track patient outcomes for quality assessment
• use classification software to assign clinical codes for insurance reimbursement and data analysis
• electronically record data for collection, storage, analysis, retrieval, and reporting
• maintain confidentiality of patients’ records

This course prepares the student to take the following certification exam(s):

• National Healthcareer Association (NHA) Electronic Health Record Specialist (CEHRS)

Curriculum Developer Biography:

Willow Nolland is an expert in education and eLearning, with more than ten years of experience in curriculum development and instructional design. She has worked in higher education for over twelve years, and has developed numerous courses and has been involved in curriculum development across disciplines. She has experience with academic program development and coordination, curriculum development, student learning outcomes, educational partnerships, and student development. In addition, she has developed and administered professional development programs for various groups, including teachers, counselors, healthcare workers and members of private industry. She is a certified Quality Matters Reviewer and has taken graduate courses in online course development. She designs and teaches online courses at the college level and is proficient in a variety of course management systems. She has helped educators redesign their courses to transition them from a face-to-face format to an online format, and has provided course editing assistance to others. As a freelance instructional designer and curriculum developer, her projects have included course editing and redesign of online continuing education courses for nurses, CEU curriculum development for healthcare workers and teachers, and course review and editing for various colleges and universities.

Certified Electronic Health Records Specialist Career Prep Curriculum:

Lesson 1: Introduction to Electronic Health Records

This lesson will explore the history and current use of patient health records, their importance to individuals' health, and their contribution to the healthcare system including documents in medical records, the electronic health record, advantages and disadvantages to using electronic health records.

Lesson 2: Overview of SimChart for the Medical Office

This lesson will review when medical practices go digital and getting comfortable with electronic health records software.

Lesson 3: Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security

This lesson will review in detail the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA); the major features of HIPPA including security safeguards and patients' rights under HIPPA; along with how patients can protect their health information.

Lesson 4: Administrative Use of the Electronic Health Record Patient Letter

This lesson will cover the role of the front office assistant, communication in the Medical Office, Incident reports, and managing electronic health records.

Lesson 5: Clinical Use of the Electronic Health Record

This lesson will review the documentation practices in electronic health records while incorporating clinical documentation in the patient record.

Lesson 6: Using the Electronic Health Record for Reimbursement

This lesson will review the healthcare reimbursement process, revenue cycles, coding systems, and potential fraud and abuse cases.

Lesson 7: The Personal Health Record and Patient Portals

This lesson will cover personal health records, what information is included as compared to the medical record, innovative features of personal health records and how to maintain the personal health record using patient portals.

Medical Billing Career Prep Curriculum:

Lesson 1: Role of the Insurance Billing Specialist

In this lesson, you will learn about your new role as an insurance billing specialist, its responsibilities and tasks, career advantages and necessary qualifications.

Lesson 2: Compliance, Privacy, Fraud, and Abuse in Insurance Billing

In this lesson, you will learn about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), insurance reforms and the HITECH act. You will discuss the differences between fraud, waste, and abuse and describe how regulations pertain to the Insurance Billing Specialist

Lesson 3: Basics of Health Insurance

In this lesson, you will learn about the history and organization of health insurance in the United States and how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will reform healthcare. You will also follow the administrative life-cycle of a physician-based insurance claim from completion to third-party payer processing and payment.

Lesson 4: The Blue Plans, Private Insurance, & Managed Health Care Plans

In this lesson, you will learn about the differences between a traditional indemnity and a managed care plan, including organization, features and payment mechanisms.

Lesson 5: Medicare, Medicaid, & Other State Programs

In this lesson, you will learn about eligibility, benefits and claim submission for Medicare. Participants will also learn about the history, eligibility, benefits, and claims submission for Medicaid and other state programs.

Lesson 6: TRICARE & Veterans Health Care

In this lesson, you will learn about eligibility, benefits, providers and claim submission guidelines for TRICARE and Veteran's Health Care.

Lesson 7: Workers Compensation

In this lesson, you will learn about the differences between workers' compensation and employers liability insurance, eligibility, waiting periods, types of claims, record keeping, and claim submission.

Lesson 8: Disability Income Insurance & Disability Benefit Programs

In this lesson, you will learn about the benefits and exclusions contained in individual and group disability income insurance, eligibility requirements, procedures for claim submissions.

Lesson 9: Medical Documentation & Electronic Health Records

In this lesson, you will lean about the medical record and its transformation into what is known as the electronic health record. You will explain the importance of documentation and how poor documentation makes it difficult for the Insurance Billing Specialist.

Lesson 10: Diagnostic Coding

In this lesson, you will learn how to code diagnoses and the importance of accurate diagnostic coding. You will have hands-on practice with both ICD-9  and ICD-10 coding conventions and demonstrate your ability to abstract medical conditions from the medical record and accurately assign diagnostic codes.

Lesson 11: Procedural Coding

In this lesson, you will learn the purpose and importance of procedural coding. You will have hands-on practice with CPT coding conventions and demonstrate your ability to abstract information from the medical record and accurately assign procedural codes.

Lesson 12: The Paper Claim (CMS-1500)

In this lesson, you will learn when paper claims are to be used. You will compare the differences between clean, pending, rejected, incomplete, and invalid claims and demonstrate the ability to complete the CMS-1500 claim form accurately for federal, state, and private payer insurance contracts using current basic guidelines.

Lesson 13: The Electronic Claim

In this lesson, you will learn the advantages of electronic claim submission, the methods of interactive computer transactions for transmitting insurance claims and the procedures for transmission.

Lesson 14: Receiving Payments & Insurance Problem Solving

In this lesson, you will learn claim management techniques, solutions for denied and rejected claims, and methods to reduce insurance problems and obtain maximum correct payments.

Lesson 15: Collection Strategies

In this lesson, you will learn about the cash flow cycle in the medical office, including how to explain fees and answer patient questions, offer payment options and how to avoid making patients pay for your mistakes and adding expense and causing a delay in payment.

Lesson 16: Ambulatory Surgery Centers

In this lesson, participants will learn about Outpatient hospital care facilities (as often called ambulatory care) and cover various types of services that do not require an overnight hospital stay. Ambulatory surgery centers, known as ASCs, are health care facilities specifically focused on providing same-day surgical care, including diagnostic and preventive procedures and services.

Lesson 17: Hospital Outpatient & Inpatient Billing

In this lesson, you will learn about the differences in medical billing for a hospital vs. a medical office, the flow of the inpatient hospital stay from billing through receipt of payment and the general guidelines for completion of a paper CMS-1450 (UB-04) and transmission of the electronic claim form.

Lesson 18: Seeking a Job and Attaining Professional Advancement

In this lesson, you will learn about the importance of customer-focused service, pathways to certification, how to search for and successfully apply for a job.

All necessary course materials are included.

Certification(s):

This course prepares the student to take the following certification exam(s):

• National Healthcareer Association (NHA) Electronic Health Record Specialist (CEHRS)

System Requirements:

Internet Connectivity Requirements:

• Cable, Fiber, DSL, or LEO Satellite (i.e. Starlink) internet with speeds of at least 10mb/sec download and 5mb/sec upload are recommended for the best experience.

NOTE: While cellular hotspots may allow access to our courses, users may experience connectivity issues by trying to access our learning management system.  This is due to the potential high download and upload latency of cellular connections.   Therefore, it is not recommended that students use a cellular hotspot as their primary way of accessing their courses.

Hardware Requirements:

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 4 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher.  1920x1080 resolution is recommended for the best experience.
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone for Webinar or Live Online sessions.

Operating System Requirements:

• Windows 7 or higher.
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions
  

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

Web Browser Requirements:

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

Basic Software Requirements (These are recommendations of software to use):

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is described in the above course outline.