Talk:Clinical coder

To do
I've started this extensive re-write of this article because the previous version was focussed on clinical coding of inpatient events in the UK only. I don't have all the references I need at hand at the time of writing this and therefore will come back and continue to work on this.

Tasks to do: Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Expand the paragraphs on the three phases and reference them
 * Expand the list of classifications to include categories for Ambulatory, Oncology and Mental Health
 * Add classifications from non-English languages
 * Explain the difference between a statistical classification and a nomenclature (with reference)
 * Add a see also for UMLS
 * Edit the ICD and ICD-10 articles to internationalise from USA only
 * Write the articles for the redlinks
 * Casemix
 * NCCH
 * Daypatient
 * ICD-9-CM-A
 * ICD-10-AM
 * Find someone with knowledge of the Canadian classifications to write the ICD-9-CA and ICD-10-CA articles
 * Expand the skills section
 * Add explanations to the list of uses of coded data
 * Possibly add a list of classifications used by country - although with respect to ICD this is already on the WHO website and a link to this may be all that is necessary

Merger proposal
I have proposed this merger because much of the introductory material in the Medical classification article is duplicated in this article.

The list of classifications after merging will be more comprehensive.

While, I haven't marked the Diagnosis codes, Procedure codes, Pharmaceutical codes or Topographical codes articles for merger, I question the need for these to be separate articles and would appreciate thoughts on this as well. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 09:57, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * "Clinical" (in the US) either implies a type of facility (owned by physicians, and generically multispecialty primary care) or focused specifically on the medical science aspects of medicine and not the business of medicine. "Coders" generically work in both domains, coding for science and physician documentation as well as for bills and claims.  So, my humble opinion is "coders" is really the article with differentiation of these domains, but coders is so generic that "medical coders" or "clinical coders" being fine, and "medical coders" is more generic and preferred to me.  The separate articles on "diagnosis codes",etc., are more about the coding systems and not the people assigning them and I think they should be separate (and are generic terms that quickly point to ICD, CPT, etc.).

By the way, "daypatient" is a funny term in the US. "Outpatient" or "Ambulatory" are common. Lyle (talk) 15:15, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree with proposed merger
I agree this article should be merged -- mostly under the Medical classification article, but parts related to the role of the professional under the Health information management section on "Medical records and health information technicians". Guptan99 (talk) 12:32, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I have harmonized/updated/verified the lists of medical classification systems from this article and the medical classification article, all under the latter article. I included a "Main: medical classification" notice here. I believe there is still a strong argument in favour of merging "medical coder" here. Guptan99 (talk) 16:18, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Disagree with proposed merger
I cannot disagree more. Although medical coders do perform classification, their positions include other realms of the health information management world including reimbursement cycle management, release of information work, auditing, working with registries, and more. If there is information copied from another article here I would question that for sure and perhaps bring it up with whoever did it.

I do, however, agree that this article ought to be renamed "Medical coder" - it covers a more broad spectrum. The "clinical" part of the current article implies a coder working in a clinic (or other health facility) when in fact they may work for insurance companies, as auditing contractors, for government agencies and more. How about a proposal to rename this article?

Mheart ( talk ) 20:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose A clinical/medical coder is a HIM professional. Whilst the classifications are tools used by the coders. As for the article title, as far as I'm aware, medical coding is the more common term used in the US, but internationally clinical coding is used more (at least in job adverts). Little pob (talk) 14:05, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Nosologist
My understanding of nosologists is that they'e the people who develop and maintain a classification. The coders are the ones who use the classification(s). This might be a UK-centric POV; so, are the terms more synonymous with each other elsewhere in the world? Little pob (talk) 13:11, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
 * See the definition for a nosologist in the Clinical coder section of the article. Internationally the term nosologist is a professional term as opposed to the occupational one of clinical coder. For example, I'm a nosologist who has responsibility for the training and quality of a team of clinical coders. As part of my role I advise the users of the data on how best to extract what they need and have input into the development and maintenance of the classifications we use. I also work across at least nine different classifications, while my team uses two. So, yes synonymous, but also Clinical Coder plus. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 02:47, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Do you think 's redirect to Nosology needs addressing in anyway? (This article is already listed in the "see also" section at the target.) Little pob (talk) 16:35, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

State mandate to be certified in the US
"Some U.S. states now mandate or at least strongly encourage certification from either AAPC or AHIMA or a degree from a college to be employed." Where is there any such mandate? Surely there is no certification required to work within any particular state. If working for the state itself in certain jobs requires a certification, that's a whole different story. The article is very unclear as to what is meant. 2603:9000:DE03:4A7A:9452:2FDA:10FC:7C4 (talk) 02:15, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm only familiar with coding in the UK. Rather than remove, I've tagged as citation needed. Little pob (talk) 14:59, 19 March 2022 (UTC)