When AI Learns to Read Doctor Notes, What Happens to the Humans Who Used To?
Here's some context to help you understand:
If you’ve ever been to a hospital, a medical coder has quietly played a part in your visit, even if you’ve never heard of them.
Coders are the people who take what doctors write (“patient came in with chest pain, diagnosed with pneumonia, prescribed antibiotics”) and turn it into a series of billing codes. Those codes tell the insurance company, “Here’s what happened, now pay the hospital.”
No code = no payment.
That’s how important they are.
But now, AI can read those same doctor notes and generate codes automatically. It’s starting with easy stuff, basic procedures and common conditions, and slowly moving into more complicated territory. Hospitals love the promise of speed and accuracy, but there’s a catch: AI still gets things wrong, especially when it’s dealing with messy, real-world cases.
That’s where human coders come in. They know the rules, the gray areas, and the medical details that software often misses.
Instead of replacing them, AI is changing what coders do. The boring, repetitive part of the job is being automated. What’s left is the high-value work: checking that the codes are correct, following the latest billing regulations, and making sure the hospital gets paid properly.
Libman Education, a company that trains medical coders, says this is the moment to level up, not check out. They’ve been teaching healthcare professionals how to adapt to every new technology wave, and this one’s no different.
Their message is simple:
“AI isn’t your competition, it’s your new assistant. Let it handle the easy stuff, while you do the work only humans can.”
Because in healthcare, if the coding goes wrong, the money stops flowing and that’s something no AI can fix on its own.
Now let's hear it from Susan:
Preparing Medical Record Coders for New Roles Shaped by AI
Thank you for the opportunity to share what our company is doing to help medical record coders find their footing in this brave new world of AI.
Libman Education is in the business of creating and delivering online training materials for the HIM/Revenue Cycle Management areas of healthcare organizations. These professionals sit at the chokepoint of a healthcare organization’s revenue cycle. They turn medical information, the record of the patient’s condition and the procedures performed, into billing information. If the organization’s services are not coded, they can’t get billed, the organization can’t get paid.
The challenge then is translating a complex, very human process into a rigorously controlled system of codes. We start with a unique human person, the patient, being evaluated and treated by another unique human person, the clinician, who then records in human language what was seen and what was done. The translation into the coding system by the medical record coder requires understanding of both medical services and the very large and complex set of guidelines and definitions that govern how the codes should be applied. While it can be straightforward; it often is not.
Use of AI is surging into the coding of medical records. Starting with the easiest and most repeatable medical interactions, it continues to push upward into more complex, less uniform conditions and procedures. This continues a process that predates the current use of AI technology with other solutions that promised accuracy and efficiency. This is not our first (disruption) rodeo, and we are confident that coders will step-up to the challenge.
Because medical services change so rapidly and rules about how one may code these services change at least yearly, coders are always in a learning mode. As a training company, we know that up-skilling and cross-training have long been the go-to solution for organizations who want to help their coders do the work that needs to be done.
Coders are the ones best positioned to ensure that while the AI tools handle the progressively less easy stuff, it is being done correctly: that the codes are accurate, “by-the-book,” complete, and defensible. An organization, and there are some, who choose to throw out their coders and let the AI handle it, run an incredible risk of getting their coding and billing very wrong, and no one left to figure out what is happening and fix the problem.
AI is now freeing coders from repetitive work to provide greater benefit and value to their organizations. While hospitals are still determining how best to benefit from the amazing AI tools heading our way, they are actively evaluating what roles their skilled and knowledgeable coding staff can play.
Our perception is that while the coding function is being reshaped by AI, the opportunities for skilled coders are incredible. Our business is working to ensure they are ready for the challenge.
Susan Pepple
spepple@libmaneducation.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-pepple-20126513/
www.libmaneducation.com
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