RHIT- Which Credential Next CPC, CRC, or CCS

The question that came up, this was another really good one. I have to say I talked to a lot of people, when people call in and schedule time with us, with career advice, what credential to get, I enjoy doing that.

Q: “I am RHIT (an AHIMA credential) and have been coding for 25 years. I see most have CPC and CRC. I know while looking for contract work some of the first questions are do you code HCC charts and some places whether you are an RHIT or CCS some places are requiring CPC coding. Is it in your opinion worth going and getting these certificates? I don’t really know what they entail but I would love to find out.”

A: I have an answer for you S. T. Good stuff, those are all good credentials, by the way. The first thing we want to know is everybody needs to understand what an RHIT is because some people may not be aware of what that credential is. It is similar to a CPC in the training, similar but not the same. Basically, with AHIMA, the RHIT is a credential that you get but it’s required that you have an associate’s degree in health information technology. With this degree, you have to have 60 credit hours. That means you’re going to have to take your English, your History, your Math and all the others.

They also teach you some coding and some management skills with health information technology. So, that’s the main difference regarding having an RHIT and some of the other credentials that we looked at. None of the other coding credentials are required to have a degree. So, the RHIT is an associate’s degree and then they also have an RHIA which is a bachelor’s degree that you would get in the same information but again you would have a bachelor’s. But you’re doing similar but not exactly the same as someone that is a certified coder. Thus, she said she had 25 years of coding experience. Absolutely you can be a coder with an RHIT. Usually the reason people do decide to get a degree in that is that they want to go into supervision or management. Not that you can’t, it’s just that if you’re working for a hospital a lot of the times, a supervisory or management job is required to have a degree.
I pulled off of pay scale, a little bit of knowledge is to have about the different credentials and what they entail, is understanding the pay scale as well. So, if a person is an RHIT, could they be in management, for this one is a Health Information Management Director, which I would say probably that an RHIA, a bachelor’s degree for you to have a director’s position, not an RHIT but I could be wrong. This is a salary; this is a profile that they took. That’s around $66,000.

Registered, just an RHIT by itself, they run about almost $40,000, $39,000. Then, the Health Information Management $58,000. Again, it gives you an idea really quite comparative to having the CPC or multi-credentials. But you noticed that it’s director, manager, that it’s supervisory positions usually when you have a degree.

So, I do want to highlight here and tell you that you do not have to have a college degree to be a coder. If we scroll down a little bit we can see that some of the coding positions by www.payscale.com comparable. With the 64 medical coders that they surveyed, it was around 39,000, almost 49,000. That’s a medical coder, meaning you’re probably certified. I would tell you that if you want a better review of salary, you need to jump out to the AAPC and look at their salary study that they do every year because there’s a lot more than only 65; 64 coders. We’ve got hundreds and hundreds of coders that they’re taking a payscale because it’s going to be more than $39,000.

Health Information Managers around $51,000. Supervisors, $50,000 and coding managers $71,000. Now, can you be a coding manager without an RHIT or a degree? Absolutely you can. You can be a supervisor.

This was the study that was done by someone that isn’t a coding organization giving you the information, so you can take it with a grain of salt that way. Meaning, they didn’t survey as many people. Again, I want you to know that AHIMA is the one who credentials an RHIT and A, and they are a degree program.
I did find this statement which I found extremely interesting that came out by AHIMA. They stated: “An emphasis needs to be placed on program growth at the baccalaureate (bachelor’s degree) and graduate level (master’s degree) to move the profession to a higher level of education rapidly.”

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