Obtaining a CPC, CCA, or CBCS certification implies that an individual has met competencies in the field of medical billing and coding. Certification is invaluable to the student's career goals. Students have an opportunity to make confident, informed decisions about the national certification they prefer.

The Certified Professional Coder (CPC) test is offered by the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC). It is the gold standard entry-level coding certification for physician, or professional fee, coders.

The Certified Coding Associate (CCA) is offered by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). It is an entry-level medical coding certification across all settings--physician practices and inpatient hospital.

The Certified Billing and Coding Specialist (CBCS) is offered by the National Healthcareer Association (NHA) and is currently an entry-level medical billing certification for physician practices. In the summer of 2021, the test will transition to an entry-level billing and coding certification, with the inclusion of ICD-10-CM, CPT, and HCPCS Level II testing.

Background

Industry experts have found that an aging population, emerging treatment methods and technology advances mean strong career prospects for well-qualified sales reps.

Potential Earnings

PayScale.com sets the average compensation package for entry-level representatives at $51,297 but also notes a significant upside for bonus compensation and long term growth.According to MedReps, total compensation for an experienced pharmaceutical sales reps can be up to $149,544 per year, with an average base of $92,698 and bonus.

Research from the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida and the Florida Hospital Association estimates that Florida will be short 17,924 physicians by the year 2035. 

More than a decade ago, Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine and Baptist Health South Florida’s Bethesda Hospital and Boca Raton Regional Hospital, and Tenet Health’s Delray Medical Center, St. Mary’s Medical Center and West Boca Medical Center, signed an agreement to form the FAU Schmidt College of Medicine Graduate Medical Education Consortium (FAU GME). Their initial goal was to ensure that the region will have an adequate and well-trained physician workforce by establishing residency programs in specialties that would serve their communities. 

The FAU GME has made great strides in helping to address Florida’s looming physician shortages through its five residency and four fellowship programs. More than 177 resident physicians and fellows go through these FAU programs each year. Since the inception of the first residency program in internal medicine in 2014, more than 199 physicians have graduated from these programs to practice specialties in internal medicine, surgery, emergency medicine, psychiatry, neurology, vascular surgery, cardiology, geriatric medicine, and hospice and palliative medicine in Florida and elsewhere. Approximately 50 percent of all graduates end up practicing in Florida.

FAU GME leaders recently met to strategize and outline the next phase for graduate medical education and residency programs in Palm Beach County, which they will launch in the fall. Medical residencies take between three to seven years to complete depending on the specialty, and are required as part of the training for medical school graduates to become board-certified physicians. 

“We are excited to collaborate with our outstanding hospital partners on addressing key issues, challenges and opportunities related to graduate medical education,” said Julie Pilitsis, M.D., Ph.D., dean and vice president of medical affairs, FAU Schmidt College of Medicine. “Increasing residency positions is critical to ensuring that we attract and keep physicians here to address our state’s growing and aging population needs. Our GME consortium is a key contributor to training and securing high quality physicians. Importantly, the consortium is essential to the success of our recently launched FAU Health Network – a true collaboration that brings together the region’s already robust health care infrastructure, to help save lives and cure diseases.” 

Boca Raton Regional Hospital is the primary site for FAU’s first university-sponsored residency in internal medicine with participation from Bethesda Hospital and Delray Medical Center. The general surgery training program is based at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, as well as Bethesda Hospital, Delray Medical Center, St. Mary’s Medical Center and West Boca Medical Center. The emergency medicine residency training program is based at Bethesda Hospital, St. Mary’s Medical Center and Delray Medical Center. Delray Medical Center is the primary site for FAU’s university-sponsored residency in psychiatry with participation from South County Mental Health Center, Jewish Family Services, and Boca Raton Regional Hospital. FAU’s neurology residency program is based at Boca Raton Regional Hospital. Neurology residents also have the opportunity to be involved in basic neuroscience research at FAU and work with leading clinicians at the Boca Raton Regional Hospital Marcus Neuroscience Institute.

“Our inaugural residency program in internal medicine – a first for the cities of Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Boynton Beach – marked a very important milestone in bringing additional, well-trained physicians into these communities to enhance health care delivery in this region,” said Lincoln Mendez, CEO of Boca Raton Regional Hospital. “Now, we are focused on the future of the GME consortium to continue our efforts on mitigating physician and other health care shortages to address critical workforce needs in this region and throughout our state.”   

In 2020, the Kaiser Family Foundation ranked states based on the number of communities that face health professional shortages. Florida is ranked No. 5. At the top of the list is California, followed by Texas, Missouri and Alaska. According to the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, 279 communities in Florida have shortages of medical professionals in primary medicine, dental care and mental health. 

“Together with our GME consortium partners, we will help to ensure that we bring the latest academic and research programs to our area to train the next generation of physicians who will help to Excellerate quality of life, contribute to lifesaving research and provide exceptional care for patients of all walks of life including the most vulnerable members of our community,” said Daniel Listi, CEO of Delray Medical Center.  

FAU’s residency and fellowship programs are spearheaded by Curtis Whitehair, M.D., associate dean for graduate medical education, designated institutional official and interim chair of the Clinical Neurosciences Department in the Schmidt College of Medicine. 

“We are committed to building premier academic medical programs to attract the best and brightest physicians to South Florida who in turn will become leaders in their fields and specialties,” said Whitehair. “Collectively, with our consortium partners, we are helping to elevate the level of care for all patients.” 

Update: Hours after this report was published, the FDA granted certification to the Danish medical facility, freeing up more than 1 million vaccine doses to be sent to the United States.

As monkeypox case numbers climb nationwide, the Biden administration says that it remains opposed to efforts that would bypass the bureaucratic red tape keeping more than 1 million doses of vaccine stuck on another continent.

But with fears mounting that the previously rare disease now is on the verge of becoming endemic in the United States, patients, physicians and public health experts say that refusal to learn from the mistakes of the coronavirus pandemic is unacceptable—particularly when a safe and effective vaccine is already in reach.

“It's just déjà vu all over again,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law Center. “When you have a fast-moving, out-of-control spread of monkeypox in the United States, when the White House goes the extra mile and purchases a million doses, and then to not have them available to respond in a smart, effective way, it’s intolerable.”

“There literally is no excuse.”

Since the first domestic monkeypox case was identified in May, there have been more than 1,000 confirmed cases in the United States, although a lack of access to testing and broad clinical unfamiliarity with the illness means that the true case count is likely far greater, according to epidemiologists. At the outbreak’s onset, government officials downplayed the risk that monkeypox posed to Americans, pointing to a vast supply of more than 100 million doses of preventative vaccines for both monkeypox and its more dangerous relative, smallpox, held in national vaccine stockpiles.

The monkeypox virus—which likely originates in rodents, despite its name—has historically been almost entirely restricted to children in Central and West Africa, in part because it is spread primarily through close physical contact. But the most accurate outbreak has already been found in more than 10,000 people worldwide, primarily in men who have sex with men. The illness caused by the monkeypox virus is not dissimilar from chickenpox, although they are not related, as monkeypox symptoms include fever, headaches and soreness, as well as the fluid-filled lesions that supply the disease its name. All of the people who have tested positive for the illness in the latest outbreak have recovered, according to public health authorities, but the long-term side effects of the illness are not well understood.

“We have access to vaccines and even treatments here in the U.S., and so the risk we believe is substantially lower,” Dr. Raj Panjabi, the senior director for global health security and biodefense at the White House’s National Security Council, told NPR in May. The National Strategic Stockpile, the nation’s emergency repository for medical supplied, possesses roughly 100 million doses of ACAM2000, a second-generation vaccine, and the United States owns more than 1 million doses of Jynneos, a two-dose vaccine approved in 2019 that has fewer side effects than ACAM2000.

But as the scale of the current monkeypox outbreak came to be understood, public health officials came to realize an enormous hitch in plans for swift disbursement of a vaccine: nearly all of the Jynneos doses owned by the United States have not been cleared to enter the United States by the Food and Drug Administration.

In 2020, one year after Jynneos was approved for use by the FDA, the vaccine’s Danish manufacturer, Bavarian Nordic, began moving each step of its vaccine manufacturing in-house after having used a contractor to fill doses of Jynneos offsite. This resulted in roughly 1.1 million doses of the vaccine being filled at a Bavarian Nordic facility near Copenhagen—a facility which, unlike its predecessor, was not yet inspected by the FDA. While the U.S. still possessed 300,000 doses of Jynneos that had been filled at the FDA-inspected contractor facility, the 1.1 million remaining doses remain stuck in limbo until the new facility is inspected.

“An inspection is one of the final steps of a long process,” a Bavarian Nordic spokesperson told The Daily Beast. “Moving production from one facility to a new facility is a major manufacturing change that needs to be very well supported with data including sterility, specifications, and analytical methods and to establish reliable supply chains so that manufacturing is as consistent as possible.”

That would be a reasonable excuse for the delay, health experts and public officials said, if the new Bavarian Nordic facility had not already passed muster with European regulators more than a year ago—and if the FDA had not delayed its own inspections process until a public health crisis.

“The FDA has their heads in the ground!” said Michael Donnelly, a data scientist and a prominent critic of the public health response to monkeypox. “Thousands of GBTQ Americans are denied these vital vaccines every day while they sit in a warehouse in Denmark. It’s not a question of if this process will cause a delay—the delay is already here.”

The delay is explained partly by the same thing that has made the current monkeypox outbreak so surprising: its previous rarity outside of a few communities in Central and West Africa.

“The FDA hadn’t gotten around to inspecting the new factory and whose fault that is, I don’t know. But until this started in May, monkeypox was at the bottom of everybody's list,” said Dr. David Freedman, a professor emeritus of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama and an expert in tropical diseases. “Nobody anticipated that so many doses would be needed, and it just kind of dropped down there.”

Bavarian Nordic, Freedman said, also had no incentive to expedite the FDA inspection, “because at that time, nobody wanted to buy their vaccine.”

“They weren’t ordering any more—they had a contract for these couple of million doses, and the U.S. was being resupplied with the older vaccine,” Freedman said. “So I think that's what happened here.”

That inspection snafu has slowed the number of doses available to Americans at high risk for infection down to a trickle, and has turned obtaining a dose into a grim combination of The Hunger Games and a radio call-in competition for concert tickets. In New York City, the current epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, the announcement that 1,700 doses of the vaccine would be made available by the city’s health department on Tuesday turned into a free-for-all as the appointment website crashed within seconds of going live. For nearly two hours, thousands of would-be patients hit “Refresh” on the site hoping to obtain a shot, with nearly all of them closing their browsers without an appointment.

The solution, public health authorities and elected officials are increasingly saying, is for the FDA to waive the inspection requirement and accept the European Medicines Agency’s inspections as reciprocation to its own. The FDA already accepts reciprocity for various medical products, and is set to decide by this Friday if they will extend that reciprocity to vaccines.

“It isn’t as though the idea of vaccine reciprocity is ludicrous. The FDA has already been contemplating it,” said Erik Bottcher, a member of the New York City Council who represents Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, all of which have large LGBTQ populations. “We should absolutely use the European Medicines Agency’s determination that the Bavarian Nordic facility is in compliance.”

The White House has downplayed the delay in FDA inspection, with Panjabi telling reporters at a New York press conference last week that the agency had actually expedited inspections by “several months to make sure we have those vaccines here as quickly as possible.”

A White House spokesperson told The Daily Beast that the inspection of the Danish facility, which began on July 1, is ongoing, and punted the question of bypassing the inspection requirement to the agency.

“Inspection of Denmark is not delayed,” said White House Assistant Press Secretary Kevin Munoz. “As you know, it’s an independent regulatory agency so we do not have an opportunity to have a role.”

The FDA, along with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, did not respond to requests for comment on bypassing the inspection requirements. But no epidemiology expert who spoke with The Daily Beast doubted that European regulators are more than competent at determining the safety of a manufacturing facility.

“I suspect that the European Union’s regulatory arm is capable of undertaking effective inspections,” said Dr. Timothy Brewer, a professor of epidemiology at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health and of Medicine. “I would not have any personal concerns with using an EU-inspected vaccine.”

With the coronavirus pandemic in its third year, public health experts told The Daily Beast that there is no excuse for any hurdles in the nation’s response to monkeypox, whether they be the result of federal red tape or local incompetence.

“The White House doesn’t get to just sit back and watch a comedy of errors at the city and state level, because it's not a city and state problem—it’s a national problem,” said Gostin. “This is an infectious disease. By definition, it will cross state borders and it needs a unified, rigorous, well-resourced federal response.”

In late June, the White House did outline its plan for addressing the outbreak, with announced distribution of nearly 300,000 doses of the vaccine “over the coming weeks,” as well as the purchase of 2.5 million additional new doses—although those will not be available until next year.

More immediately, the White House is partnering with GLAAD in hosting a monkeypox briefing aimed at social media influencers aimed at informing their followers about vaccine eligibility and at-risk behavior. The briefing, first reported by Politico on Wednesday, was met with scorn by many of the very influencers who would normally take part in it, many of whom pointed out that wider access to the vaccine would do more to prevent monkeypox’s spread than posts on TikTok.

“whatever brave influencer says yes to this opportunity… good luck,” tweeted Tyler Oakley, perhaps the most famous gay influencer working. “everyone already hates it & you & everything you’ve ever done.”

In addition to the cringe factor, Gostin said, the risk of farming out vaccine information to influencers is that it looks like the administration is treating those at high risk—many of whom are already well informed about monkeypox, and are simply waiting for their shots—like children.

“Using influencers is, in some ways, talking down to them, whereas you need to have community-based organizations and people who are at risk themselves getting support,” Gostin said. “What we learned from the AIDS epidemic is that working closely with affected communities and finding out what they need for support is clearly the best way to go.”

The risks of the delayed vaccine rollout grow every day. With tens of thousands of monkeypox cases worldwide likely going unconfirmed, a number floated grimly by one administration source, the United States is quickly approaching a day when containment is no longer feasible, and the illness becomes a fixture of American life.

“We are very much at risk of monkeypox becoming entrenched in the U.S.,” said Bottcher. “And unlike many purely sexually transmitted infections, there are still many questions and unknowns about other forms of monkeypox transmission outside of sexual contact.”

That day, Freedman said, may already be here.

“I don’t think, whatever we do, that monkeypox is now going to go away,” Freedman said. “I think the best we can hope for is to control this outbreak. Of course, any delay in getting people vaccinated is going to prevent us from being able to minimize or prevent the further growth of the disease.”

BLOOMINGTON — Ivy Tech Community College’s Bloomington campus is offering a 12-week Certified Medical Assistant (CCMA) training course at no cost for eligible students that starts Aug. 23. Grant funding with the state’s Next Level Jobs Workforce Ready Grant covers costs for qualified participants. 

The CCMA course is a short-term, non-credit workforce training opportunity that quickly prepares graduates to qualify for local, high-demand jobs in the field. Classes are held in the evenings from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from Aug. 23 to Nov. 10, with a one-week break.

For individuals who may not qualify for funding, the cost of the course is $2,599 and includes course materials, instruction, and the certification test to qualify for employment.

For questions or to get registered, contact Ivy Tech Bloomington’s workforce training office at 812-330-6042 or bloomington-workforcetraining@ivytech.edu. For more information about short-term, non-credit training opportunities, visit www.ivytech.edu/bloomington/ccec.

Ivy Tech Community College offers more than 70 career and four-year transfer programs, with courses that start multiple times per year for quicker entry and graduation.

Many OB-GYNs, including some who perform abortions, are celebrating a decision that allows them to avoid traveling to Texas for certifying board exams.

Some feared gathering en masse would make them vulnerable to violence. Others who are pregnant themselves thinking about developing complications and being forced to seek care in a state with strict abortion limits.

The American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology exams are voluntary, but certification lends respect to doctors’ credentials, indicating they graduated from an accredited medical school and passed written and oral competency exams. Some employers also require the tests.

The Dallas-based board had held virtual exams during the pandemic but planned to have the upcoming fall oral exams in-person. On Thursday, the board announced a reversal, saying the exams would be virtual.

The decision was made “due to the increase in COVID-19 cases across the country and concerns regarding the U.S. Supreme Court opinion“ that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, the board said.

The switch came after many OB-GYNs — including some taking the tests and others administering the exams — objected to traveling to Texas.

“They’re scared. They have nothing to lose but their own personal safety,” said Dr. Jocelyn Fitzgerald, a Pennsylvania OB-GYN, who signed a petition against in-person exams.

The three-hour exams test skills, knowledge and ability to treat different conditions. The examiners also review cases related to patients whom doctors have treated during the past year, the board website says.

Open enrollment for the program available for Dallas, Houston and Beaumont campuses

DALLAS, Aug. 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Evolution Academy Charter School, along with Texas Education Agency and Region 10 Education Service Center, now offers a Community Health Worker (CHW) Certification as an option to help students prepare for the workforce as part of its College and Career Readiness requirements.

Community Health Workers (CHWs) are non-medical public health workers who connect communities to health care and social service providers. CHWs have been identified by many titles, such as Community Health Advisors, lay health advocates, promotoras, outreach educators or community health representatives. Community Health Workers are a necessary link for hospitals, churches, insurance companies and nonprofits to connect with diverse populations and promote healthy behaviors.

This is the first year this program was offered to high school students and Evolution Academy Charter School Richardson took advantage of the opportunity by enrolling fourteen students to participate in the pilot program in partnership with Region 10. These students were required to meet 120 hours of core competency in eight areas: communication, interpersonal skills, service coordination, capacity building skills, advocacy skills, teaching skills, organization and knowledge base.

"Our students completed individual and group projects. They also gained hands-on experience by hosting a Health & Wellness Fair as well as a blood drive earlier this spring," said Cynthia Trigg, superintendent and founder, Evolution Academy Charter School. "We are so proud of all the work they have accomplished and for the jumpstart this certification will supply them in their careers."

Seven students have completed the program thus far. These students will receive their Community Health Worker Certification from the Texas Department of State Health Services and Region 10 Education Service Center, which will allow them to have an advantage at landing a job in the healthcare Industry.

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Following the success at the Richardson campus, Evolution Academy is now launching the Community Health Worker Certification program on all three of its campuses, located in the Dallas, Houston, and Beaumont, Texas. Programs like this support Evolution Academy's ability to provide students with access to college, career and military readiness skills while they earn a high school diploma, ultimately providing students with increased opportunities post-graduation.

In addition to the Community Health Worker Certification program, Evolution Academy Charter Schools also offers additional professional certification options including Microsoft Office Specialist, OSHA 30-Hour Construction, Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Educational Aide I, and ServSafe Manager certifications.

As Evolution Academy celebrates its 20th school year, it is revitalized in its mission to help students achieve academic, social and career success. This is accomplished by providing a comprehensive, integrated instructional program, demonstrated through a variety of innovative programs such as a 4-hour school day, online learning programs which predate the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. Evolution Academy is currently enrolling for the upcoming school year on all three of its campuses. To enroll, visit any location in person or visit www.evolutionacademy.org.

About Evolution Academy

Founded in 2002, Evolution Academy offers one-on-one attention with a mix of traditional and computer-based instruction, enabling students to earn two or more credit hours every nine weeks, allowing them to catch up or graduate early. The school also offers multiple career and technical education courses that prepare students for certificates in professional fields. Evolution Academy has graduated more than 3000 students, many of whom were unsuccessful in traditional school settings. Evolution Academy has campuses in Richardson, Beaumont, and Houston, Texas, and has open enrollment year-round for all three campuses.

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SOURCE Evolution Academy Charter School