Balancing Family, Work, and School: How Allen School Supports Adult Learners

NEW ONLINE PROGRAM A NATIONAL SUCCESS One graduate’s story: “I was hired within 72 hours of posting my resume!” From around the entire United States, from Alaska to Florida, Vermont to Hawaii, and all points in between, career starters and career changers are making applications to the Allen School of Health Sciences’ new Online Medical Insurance Billing & Coding Program. They will be trained to work in offices or in medical facilities, both large and small, and in private practices. Many applicants are professionals from other industries seeking to retrain in an area in which jobs will continue to outpace qualified candidates. These include bankers, opticians, accountants, HR specialists, real estate appraisers, auditors, fleet managers, options traders, aerospace and electronics technicians, COBRA review specialists, laboratory A/R professionals, medical office managers, and business owners, etc. There are many new career starters in the application pool, as well. The fact that so many states in the union appear to be represented by applicants to the Online Medical Billing Insurance & Coding Program seems to indicate that the job market for non-medical careers has been impacted nationwide. Those in the know are focusing on getting in on the medical industry’s continued expansion in terms of job opportunities. The Online Medical Billing Insurance & Coding Program provides industry-relevant, up-to-the-minute training for positions in one of the most popular careers in health care, to meet the extraordinary demand for health information specialists. With the creation of HMOs, PPOs, and managed care, doctors need employees who understand the complexities of insurance billing. Why are all of these people coming for training?

• They are able to learn from home in their spare time without giving up their day jobs
• There is no previous medical experience needed
• It is an easy and affordable way to learn and financial aid is available to all qualified students
• The Fast-Track-To-Success program lets students complete their studies in nine short months versus the fifteen months at other billing and coding schools
• The training is constantly updated so that only the most up-to-date skills are taught
• They are prepared for taking the industry certification exams upon completion of the program
• Professional Billers and Coders earn up to $46,000 a year
• They are trained to prepare insurance claims manually and by computer using the Clinical Modification System (ICD9-CM), the Current Procedural Terminology, Fourth Ed. (CPT4), and Health Care Procedure Coding System (HCPCS)
• The Allen School is one of the only schools that hold a cap-and-gown graduation ceremony for its online graduates and provides lifetime job placement assistance

How good is this program? Well… Lisa Danger, from Sebastian, Florida, 150 miles north of Miami, member of one of the first classes in the Online Medical Insurance Billing & Coding Program, two weeks away from completing the program, posted her resume on two job boards as part of an assignment provided by her Allen School Career Development instructor. She considered it to be “just an exercise” in posting resumes. Two days later, Lisa had an interview. “I posted my resume,” Lisa said, “as per the assignment. Then, I came home from running errands that same morning and found the email to call the office. ‘Can you come in at 3:00 PM?’ it read. It was 1:00 PM.” The day after the interview, Lisa had a job – in a comfortable office providing her newly obtained skills to facilitate the operation of the private practice of three high-level specialists in the behavioral health area. Lisa obtained the skills needed to distinguish herself from other applicants using the techniques learned in her executive-level Career Development class. This component of Allen School’s training programs includes an intensive self-assessment segment that provides tools for isolating transferable skills, strengths, achievements, experience, and background. It enables the candidate to create a most effective unique bio and career profile for use in resumes, cover letters, and interviews. Lisa was able to draw upon previous experience as Operations Assistant Manager, Loss Prevention Manager, Front End Supervisor, and Assistant Director for giant retailers like Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and Toys-R-Us, and used it to her advantage. When speaking about her almost-instant success in getting a response to her posted resume, Lisa said, “Unexpected? Maybe, but I was not unprepared, thanks to the course and all of [my instructors]. It was a great experience. Thank all of you for the confidence to change my life’s career!” Are you a day and a click away from employment? CONTACT US

Sixty-year old student takes challenge seriously Up with the roosters, out with the owls, Medical Assistant student, Desiree Bacchus, works twelve hour night shifts at Downstate Hospital in the ICU as a cardiac telemetry technician (EKG Associate), goes home and takes a brief nap, and then arrives on time at the Brooklyn campus of Allen School to her Medical Assistant training. Working and going to school has never been a problem for this former policewoman from Guyana, a ballistics expert who specialized in handwriting analysis, fingerprinting, and lab technology in the criminal investigation department in Georgetown. While working as a policewoman, Desiree attended night classes at the university in Guyana for four years and became a lawyer. She practiced criminal law from 1982 until 1986, working in the office of the director of public prosecutions. Then came the opportunity to come to the USA. Upon arrival in America, Desiree found that her desire to go back to law school to become a criminologist, so that she could return to Guyana as the country’s first, was not to be an option, due to financial constraints. Desiree, not one to be easily deterred, embarked upon a different path, one that would lead her into the medical field.

The Speed Staffing System™ lives up to its reputation for S-P-E-E-D! Brooklyn Medical Assistant graduate Jeanette Alicea received three interview requests on the Speed Staffing System™, one each week for three consecutive weeks. It was a hectic time. She found herself rushing from one medical facility to another for interviews. The job Jeanette ultimately took was for two extremely busy pediatricians, Drs. Dupiton and Grant, in Cambria Heights, Queens, where she has the opportunity to use her bi-lingual English/Spanish skills with those patients who prefer to speak Spanish. “I am getting to put to use what I learned at Allen School,” Jeanette said. She is working with two medical assistants who have been there for an extended period of time and she feels that she is handling herself well, “learning new things every single day.” “The Speed Staffing System™ was really great. It helped me to land my first job,” Jeanette said, “I didn’t have to wait very long to get called. It was so quick.” She explained that the process of preparing to make a sixty-second statement on the Speed Staffing System™ and putting together the information for an individual online page was integral to preparing her well for interviews. “During the interview for the job I got, the doctor told me that she really liked what was written about me,” said Jeanette. “The fact that she saw [on the Speed Staffing profile page] that I had worked at Head Start was of interest to her and when I came in, she mentioned that. She also knew who to expect when I arrived – because of my photo!” “On another interview,” Jeanette said, “the doctor mentioned about my perfect attendance. He saw that on my profile page.” Summing up her entire experience with Allen School, Jeanette said, “It was great- the instructors, the staff, Ms Jackson, Speed Staffing – it was actually fabulous!”

Have a headache? Call the doctor. A stomach ache? Call the doctor. A sore throat? Call the doctor. But… your doctor may not be in the office on the day you call. He may be at Walmart buying an electronic health records (EHR) system to digitize your medical records. He may just be in Aisle 7, contemplating the purchase of the $25,000 full implementation of an eClinicalWorksEHR system to be sold through Sam’s Club specifically designed for a clinician in a medical office. Having an electronic health system in your own doctor’s office lessens the likelihood of you being treated with medicine for a stomach ache when you came in for a sore throat. When used properly, most health experts contend that digital records vastly improve patient care. The days of pulling a patient’s file at a doctor’s office or having a patient retrieve and bring in medical records from a specialist will be over. Doctors will be able to enter a patient’s info onto a computer, but it is far more likely that medical assistant and billing and coding staff will be digitalizing the info based on the doctor’s written notes. The doctor and the staff will be able to gain instant access to all the medical records at the touch of a button. Walmart began implementing the EHR technology that it will soon offer to physicians, in 2006, at its own thirty clinics in eight states, staffed by third-party doctors and nurses. Dell will be responsible for the computer and software installation. Training and maintenance for its electronic health records system will be handled by eClinicalWorks. It will be available for sale before summer 2009. Walmart’s decision to march boldly into the market for electronic health records, bringing the technology mainstream to where most of America’s doctors practice – in small offices – comes at the time when it can clearly capitalize on the incentive plan for providers, a federal program that provides payments to doctors and hospitals that are “meaningfully using” health information technology in practice in 2012 and beyond. The health care industry is positioned to continue to be one of the safest places in terms of job security. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, the health care industry will account for the most new jobs, almost three million of them, by the year 2016. This is due to an aging baby boomer population, population growth and advances in medical technologies. As Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, #2 on the Fortune 500 list, positions itself at the center of the electronic medical record keeping market, demand for trained professionals with skills in 21st Century medical record keeping will explode. Allen School Online Medical Insurance Billing and Coding Program graduates stand ready to hit the ground running from Day One in these prestigious career positions!

Allen School Student Body Explores Human Bodies at Seaport “Bodies Revealed” Exhibition “Astonished” is, perhaps, the ideal word to describe the reaction of Allen School Brooklyn Medical Assistant students as they entered the “Bodies Revealed” exhibition at the South Street Seaport, in lower Manhattan prompting one student to remark, “I know they are dead, but they sure do make the subject come alive!” Fourteen real full body human specimens and over 200 organs are respectfully displayed in the three-dimensional exhibition that permits visitors of all ages to explore deep inside of the human body in a way that textbooks cannot possibly portray. Approximately 200 Allen School Brooklyn Medical Assistant day and evening students participated in field trips to the exhibit, which is currently on display in Spain, Brazil and in eleven US cities. The evening classes visited on Friday, February 22nd and the daytime classes, on March 7th. Evening students were accompanied by instructors Frederick Rutherford, MD, Ian Surrey, MD and Tyrell Pichkhadze (“Mr. P”). Day classes were accompanied by Dean Robert Jannicelli, MD, Bob Shapiro, Chairman of the Media Center and Study Skills Department, and instructors Frederick Rutherford, MD, Ian Surrey, MD and Abdulla Saudi, MD. Each full body specimen in the exhibit is dissected to totally reveal the function of an entire anatomical system and to demonstrate how that particular system is integrated into the body as a whole. Some of the organs presented are diseased and some are healthy. The bodies are preserved using polymer impregnation, a relatively new method of preservation that has replaced in many cases the use of formaldehyde for storage of cadavers for medical study. The students agreed that the various interactive displays furthered their understanding of the body in a way that they would never have experienced had they not gone. Only in medical school would a student, prior to this exhibit, have the opportunity to get so up close and personal with a cadaver. They all concurred with the student who said of the bodies, “I know they are dead, but they sure make the subject come alive!”