Major: Medical Records Administration
Everyone who passes through a doctor’s office, a hospital, a health clinic, or any other health care institution leaves behind a paper trail. Like schools, which keep detailed files on each student, medical providers carefully record the history of each patient. They track everything from routine checkups and vaccinations to emergency surgery and radiation treatments. While schools record grades, however, medical professionals record diagnosis and treatment codes.
If you study medical records administration, you’ll learn medical terminology and coding. You’ll also be prepared to handle financial, insurance, and even legal issues related to patient care.
Students of medical records administration learn how to manage and design systems for storing and transmitting medical records.
Did You Know?
- Government economists expect job growth in this field to be greatest in doctors’ offices, clinics, nursing homes, and home health agencies -- not hospitals.
Are You Ready To...?
- Study a combination of business, computers, and health care topics
- Memorize everything from the parts of the body to the codes for a wide range of illnesses and tests
- Intern with a doctor’s office, a hospital, a nursing home, or another health care provider
It Helps to Be...
Very detail-oriented, good with numbers, and comfortable working with computers. Do you take great notes in class? Keep a personal diary? If so, you already have some important skills for this major.
College Checklist
- Is the program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs?
- Will you be eligible to take the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) exam upon graduation?
- Will the program help you find an internship?
- What are recent grads doing now?
Did You Know?
- Most employers prefer to hire a registered health information administrator who has passed the exam offered by the AHIMA.
Course Spotlight
You’ll take a class on medical terminology early on in this major. After all, you can’t study or work in the field if you don’t speak the language. You’ll learn to understand, spell, and pronounce the vocabulary of diseases and treatments. And you’ll do more than memorize -- you’ll build and decode words using the roots, prefixes, and suffixes of Latin and Greek.
