How to Get a Job as a Health Information Technician

A health information technician works in the medical records department of a hospital. Each time a patient visits a physician or is admitted to the hospital the information about that occurrence must be entered into the patient’s file. This includes the patient’s symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up appointments. Your job in this position would be to review this information to ensure that it is accurate. You would have to review the charts to make sure they contain all the information they should as well as ensuring that all forms for treatment are signed and completed properly. You may often have to communicate with the physician to clarify the information in the file.

If you work as a health information technician in a large hospital, you will likely start off in an entry-level position. As you gain experience you can advance to an advisory or supervisory capacity in which you supervise and evaluate the performance of new staff. A smaller hospital may not require a large staff to take care of all the patient files, so you may have to take on this responsibility on your own.

One aspect of working as a health information technician is coding patient information for insurance purposes. For this reason you may see job posting for this type of position entitled health Information Coder or Medical Records Coder. There is a code assigned to each diagnosis or treatment so you will need to be very knowledgeable about these codes. Cancer registry is another category of the job of working as a technician for health information. In this work, you would submit the names of cancer patients to regional and national databases.



In order to qualify for a job as a health information technician you should have at least an associate degree from a university or through online courses. The coursework will include courses in all aspects of medical terminology, anatomy and physiology as well as computer courses. Most hospitals will only hire you in this type of position if you are certified as a Registered Health Information Technician. The American Health Information Management Association offers this certification and you can only enter the write the certification upon successful completion of at least a two-year associate program. If you receive on the job training you will not be eligible to take the exam.

In addition to the educational qualifications, it would be beneficial to have experience working in a health care facility when you want to get a job as a health information technician. You also need to have excellent communication skills as well as interpersonal skills as you will be dealing with other personnel in the facility as well as outside organizations. If you specialize in one of the areas of this occupation, you can advance to senior level positions. For example coders can receive extra certification in this profession, which will enable them to enhance their skills. Technician certified in coding are in high demand and experts do not see any decrease in this demand in the near future.