State Alerts: What’s Happening in New York?
Is New York State a good place to build a career as a medical biller and coder?
If you have been following the news from New York, things do not look too rosy at first glance. On January 19, New York Governor David Paterson released his proposal for a budget that will attempt to close a projected $7.4 billion deficit for the 2010-11 fiscal year.
According to the Greater New York Hospital Association, that budget “contains major cuts and taxes for health care providers” that will put construction of new hospitals on hold. But the issue is more complex than that, for several reasons:
- First, Governor Paterson is also trying to pass a new bill that will raise $650 million through new taxes on the sale of cigarettes and sugared beverages. If that bill passes, those funds will be earmarked for improving public health – and that spending could spur job growth for medical information processors.
- Second, Governor Paterson recently announced that he will not seek re-election. That might not impact the passage of the new bill mentioned just above, but it does throw the long-term prospects for healthcare funding into uncertainty.
A Little Perspective
The 2009 Federal Issues Book: New York Hospital and Health System Priorities, a downloadable report from the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS), helps put these recent events in context. According to HANYS, New York State’s 300+ hospitals have continued to offer many opportunities for healthcare professionals.
- New York hospitals employed 357,780 full-time workers in 2009.
- New York hospitals also created an additional 671,730 support jobs throughout the state in 2009.
- New York hospitals paid $26.8 billion in direct wages and fringe benefits to employees in 2009.
- Every year, New York hospitals provide 2.6 million inpatient hospital stays, 44 million outpatient visits (including 7.9 million emergency room visits), and deliver more than 250,000 babies.
Other trends are at work too. As billers and coders, we know that hospital cutbacks do not always correlate directly to job losses for members of our profession. When hospitals downsize their staffs, for example, they can outsource billing and other functions to outside firms. And as hospitals cut back on services, the result can be an increase in the number of urgent care centers and other non-hospital care providers that employ medical billers and coders. One example: According to The Urgent Care Association of America, the number of urgent care centers in the U.S. grew from approximately 8,000 in February 2009 to 8,700 in February 2010.
And here’s one more piece of data that supports the view that New York is a good state for medical billers and coders:
- According to 2008 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (the most recent data available), 9,200 people in the state of New York were employed as Medical Information Technologists, earning an average of $37,100 a year. According to those same statistics, the national average income for Medical Information Technologists was far lower – $32,960.
So is New York State a good place to build a career in medical billing and coding? We all need to stay alert for news about whether Governor Paterson’s soft drink/cigarette tax bill passes. But as the statistics above show, New York needs us. We’re all hoping that once the recession is over, a boom will occur – both in New York State and nationwide.
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