Curriculum

The undergraduate program curriculum provides a foundation of education on medical coding and health care data analytics. Courses in the certificate program will equip students with theoretical and practical knowledge, which will enable them to effectively analyze and evaluate available medical coded data in an actual practice setting. This program can be completed in a minimum of three semesters with continuous enrollment or longer at a desired pace.

The graduate program curriculum provides a foundation of education on medical coding and health care data analytics. Courses in the certificate program will equip students with theoretical and practical knowledge, which will enable them to effectively analyze and evaluate available medical coded data in an actual practice setting. This program can be completed in a minimum of three semesters with continuous enrollment or longer at a desired pace.

Courses

The program can be completed in as little as two semesters. HIMS 5610 and HIMS 5551 are prerequisites to HIMS 5661. HIMS 5700 should be taken after the completion of the other three courses. Course offerings are subject to change. 

HIMS 5610 (3) Medical Coding for Clinical Practice*

An introduction to the concepts, principles and applications of various health information coding classification systems, used in various health care settings. There is a strong emphasis on the use and understanding of the International Classification of Diseases – 10th edition – Clinical Modification and Procedure Coding System, computerized encoding systems for ICD-10-CM/PCS and HCPCS.  Students will gain an understanding of the importance of data quality to assure efficiency and accuracy. 

HIMS 5551 (3) Health Care Reimbursement for Practitioners*

This course will introduce the health care practitioner to healthcare reimbursement, and provide an introduction to medical billing and an overview of a variety of payment systems.  he course will discuss prevalent retrospective and prospective models for reimbursement used in today’s health care environment. It will examine the current alternative payment models utilized by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and commercial payers and will provide an overview of CMS oversight of claims payment, as well as the role auditing plays in practice or facility revenue cycle. 

HIMS 5661 (3) Applied Health Care Analytics*

The course will discuss how analytics are used in operational performance improvement, quality improvement, productivity assessment, value-based care initiatives and health care research. It requires the use of commonly used statistical methods including both descriptive and inferential statistics as well as creating charts and graphs. The data sets utilized in this course include ICD-10-CM/PCS and CPT code sets. This course facilitates the use of data to inform clinical practice, and the work in this class builds toward undertaking an individual project.  

HIMS 5700 (3) Project in Health Information Management and Systems*

Students apply theoretical knowledge acquired from the certificate program to a project that closely resembles what would be done in a realistic work environment. During the project, students apply critical thinking skills to solve a real-world problem, from assessing the problem itself to applying suitable and appropriate methods to generate one or more solutions to the problem.

*Availability of coursework subject to change.