No you are not too old. Learning is awesome at any age and trying to move into a different area is such a great thing. I also think that you are not “just a mom” . I am sure you were the encourager, the person who drove a pack of kids around, the one who made sure their meals were cooked, their cleats were stacked in the garage and their clothes were clean. You probably juggled ten things at one time and were happy for them. The fact that you are mature, dependable, hard-working and ready will help you immensely. If you have a few things to add to your resume like being able to do a spreadsheet, be able to do quicken or quickbooks, be able to handle medical software or financial software…these are things that you can put on there to assist you. I know doctors and dentists etc who just want someone competent to manage their offices and manage their insurance contracts, for instance. These are just some ideas. I would never consider yourself as second best because you stayed home awhile. Good luck.
Is one ever too old for College? I am 50.. been "just a Mom".. thinking of getting a Certificate in:
I have spoke on the phone to 3 different people today from this Community College… the oldest student they had was 81… would I personally understand that… No… I wouldn’t … but yet it made me feel better that it won’t be all young ones there… I mean I do hope to get a job afterwards or I’d feel it more of a colossal waste of time and effort for sure…
My husband is Ok with it… beings the classes are all in our area, not 40 minutes away at the other Community college that I originally thought they were (His sister was taking classes there)… we agreed when the roads are bad… He’d drive to work (on the way to this town where the college is)… I’d have to fill my time at a local Library studying till class or whatever… then pick him up on the way back… to make this work (he worries about the country roads , when not treated in the winter early… …love where we live… but it’s a challenge in the winter time… …
Only because this is 1 year, in our area… and I feel relatively confident I could pass it… am I considering going for it…
Sounds great, good luck! My mom got her masters in her early 60’s just because. She enjoyed it but it wasn’t for work.
Then I have to weigh this… husband has every Mon/ Tues off… with a job like this… there goes that… for the last 20 yrs I have taken jobs to work around this schedule… we value our time together… nice when the kids are in school… even though I may not exactly LIKE the job… the last was Direct care… it paid good enough… had great health benefits if I wanted full time… I can even work the midnight shift… that can’t happen with Medical coding & billing… I am torn really… he frowned when I told him… that would be the end of our days off together… if I go for this.
I think you are putting the cart before the horse. Once you have taken the course you can look for a job that’s either part time or flexible hours.
@OverRunMama - I would recommend that you listen to your heart and do what makes you happy.
My wife has as one of her 2017 goals to get certified in human resources. She has a degree (elementary education) but she never worked in education. She had a great job when we met as the office manager of a small insurance and securities firm. In 1995, the company that I was a SW engineer for was acquired and moved from CA to CO. We discussed it and we decided to follow the job to CO as we could start a family on my income alone. She worked remotely and then worked at a few companies in the area until we had our first child. She left the workforce in 1999 when S17 was born and stayed at home for 16 years raising the kids (S17 & S18) and maintaining the house. A little over 2 years ago, she returned to the workforce when S17 started driving. She started as the receptionist at a small startup company and quickly (I mean really quickly) was moved up. She is now the office manager and HR. She does all the recruiting, hiring and onboarding (and unfortunately firing) and really loves the HR piece of her job. She wants to expand that part of her job which may mean looking for a new job. She feels that a certification would make her more marketable.
I am encouraging and I support her in whatever she wants to do. When she started working, I needed to step up my game around the house. Her workday starts at 7AM so I am there with the boys getting them off to school. Her work is far more rigid than mine so when it comes to Dr. Appointments and such, I am the one that leaves work to take the kids. Because she is now working full time, I need to help more with the household chores like laundry and cleaning.
But I am happy to do it because my wife is happy.
Your husband may be willing to change the status quo to keep you happy. Nobody likes change, but a happy home is far more important and worth the sacrifice.
@MotherofDragons said:
there is A LOT of judgement out there by those who feel we should NEVER depend on a man… I’ve even read posts / opinions that feel we fail as a mother , don’t care about our children if we don’t have career skills -being pro-active here… if the man leaves us… (and sure it happens… can’t deny that one , can I)…
Here is the problem… before posting on forums… I was content with my life… but the outcry of feminists to women LIKE ME who are holding back the cause of “independence”…it’s taken a blow on my self esteem…ya see…I post on another forum… not a college forum… I have a wonderful marriage, I have a passion for Marriage… greatest thing I ever did was marry my husband, it’s the one thing I got right…we’ve been together since our teens… still very much in love… It has brought me fulfilling happiness…I didn’t care about a career… we both wanted… prayed we could afford a traditional lifestyle… and we have… all these years… zero debt… . we achieved all our dreams…sure we drive older cars… and watch our money carefully… but we’re ok with that…
But this is foolishness in today’s society… people need skills… advancement… I feel this ALL THE TIME… I feel the belittling of women who depend on a man. …the posts of how stupid men are to marry women who haven’t taken the time to achieve a career…
To make it even worse… a moderator on that forum has belittled me…all I can say is… I am a somewhat popular poster there… she hates me… she is a very independent high earning Feminist with 3 failed marriages… everything she IS… I am NOT… everything I had come easy in life… she never realized… but her attitude towards me has REALLY put me in a funk… is that stupid… yeah probably !! Crazy stupid… maybe a little too much pms mixed in there…but its brought me here feeling -I need to get some skill… not because we need the money… not because I really want to do this… but because society will look more favorably upon me…
It’s just like the posts here… it’s something to celebrate when one achieves / ambition… so if you don’t have enough of this… yeah… it’s nothing to boast about… it deflates .,.,
I don’t know… I am struggling with this is all.
This has to be the worst most belittling write up ever by a so called feminist… http://thoughtcatalog.com/amy-glass/2014/01/i-look-down-on-young-women-with-husbands-and-kids-and-im-not-sorry/
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@GnocchiB said:
good point… part time would be preferred… so long as he’s still working full time / with benefits… thank you
I think given your earlier post about concerns about your husband’s job that it is a good reason to move forward with this. You might be glad to have a skill set where one of you can get work even if he is laid off. It is like an insurance policy.
I think some companies have coders who work remotely, too. You may be able to do that, especially if you get a year or two of experience after finishing the degree.
It would probably best if you stopped worrying about what other people think or say. You seem really hung up on how this is somehow tied to feminism. Think about your own financial security and sense of accomplishment if you do this instead.
backs slowly out of thread. closes door
I have a back up plan to work at the direct care place if he gets laid off… great health benefits and lots of overtime always… but yeah… not something I enjoy doing too much…
April is the Open house… I will be going, looking into it… planning… we’ll see what happens…
I’m a working woman/career woman with a masters degree and I don’t for a second look down on women who are SAHM. I hate that you have experienced that and my hope for you is that you feel secure enough in your world and the life you created that you can rise above that feeling.
For what it’s worth, LOTS of women who work and have careers feel routinely judged by the women who stay at home.
The key thing here is to feel confident in your choices and your choices alone and don’t worry about what other women do or say–and then be thankful we ALL have the choice. That is the essence of what feminism is all about!
Medical Coding–so much is done by electronic medical record (EMR) these days. I would request to make contact with at least five recent graduates of the program to make sure there is some element of employability and get a feel for the work they are doing.
Good luck! You aren’t too old!
Yes… the Mommy Wars… I have posted on it many times… If I was in a room of woman who did this…(I can’t say I have been… I belonged to MOPS for many years -even there, most worked part time as I did also)…
I would confront them…it’s not right…I’ve always personally felt such women have taken on WAY MORE than me, especially those who put themselves through college, have high earning careers…I even look up to them, they seem like super women to me … (though I don’t envy them- as it’s not the life I dreamed of…I longed to be in the home, living in the country)… but by looking up this much…I look down on myself is all…
I have always used this write up in such threads… http://ctworkingmoms.com/2013/06/11/end-the-mommy-wars-special-photo-edition/ to show that both are viable options… for what works for a family… I married a man who prefers me in the home, I am completely accepted as I am… he was raised by a Stay at home Mom, she is 84 yrs old now… I dearly love this about him… but still…when this choice is so much in the minority today… you feel you have to get with the program, or you are wasting your potential… not living up to society’s expectations… it’s a difficult thing to fight internally I think…
I need to take this course for the right reasons-because I WANT to work in this field -until I retire…have my heart in it… not just to boost a lower self esteem -because most every woman I know has some sort of skilled career…
I understand this… and go back & forth on it.
How do you do this… it’s not like the School is going to give out this information? With Trump in office now… who knows what is going to happen in this field… watching the news last night… the talk is: an over turning of the whole health care system…
@carachel2, do you have first hand knowledge that the EMR reduces the need for coders? Certainly their job is changed. With all components of the record available electronically, coding should be faster. I know ICD-10 added a lot more detail to the codes. But I assume that there is still a need for a person to confirm what was actually done and that the coding is complete and accurate. The penalties for incorrect billing is high, especially for Medicare.
OP, the health care system isn’t going away. How people pay for it may. But the demand isn’t that elastic. People still get sick and need treatment.
I looked on indeed.com in our area… very few listings for this…they also seem to want experience with it… even getting a secretary job requires a degree… was reading this thread just now… https://www.indeed.com/forum/job/administrative-assistant/College-degree-needed-secretary/t32493
Just feeling very discouraged about it all…
@intparent and @OverRunMama --I work in healthcare and have worked with a few different EMRs. I think there will always be a need for humans to do actual auditing, but MUCH of the coding now is done by the EMR. Heck, at one office I left just a year or so ago, we didn’t have an EMR but I did my own coding for my own charts…by hand. And honestly it wasn’t that time consuming. We would’ve never needed a special person to handle the coding for the practice. The billing, yes…but not the coding.
You need to specifically find out what types of jobs the graduates of the program are getting. I would think you can find that information readily by speaking with an admissions counselor or a representative of the program.
For the OP, the healthcare system is not going to change overnight. Medical coding will never go completely away. It is the foundation for all billing and there will always be a need to bill.
Like you said, make sure you are doing this for the right reasons.
" but still…when this choice is so much in the minority today… you feel you have to get with the program, or you are wasting your potential… not living up to society’s expectations… it’s a difficult thing to fight internally I think…"
Who gives a *rap about everyone’s expectations? Are you magically going to fill them by being a medical coder? No, you won’t. If you are really good at keeping a home organized and running, why not find a way to outsource yourself for things like that in the community??
Not sure what we can say to you. If you don’t invest some time in more education, you can’t improve your job prospects. Talk to the CC program and career office. Maybe see if they can link you up with a couple of recent graduates to chat (ask if they have any non-traditional students that are recent grads). You need to start one step at a time. The good news is that you are looking at something that can be accomplished through a CC and should take 2 years or less if you go full time. Even if you don’t finish in that amount of time, it isn’t as if you are looking at a field that requires a 4 year or graduate degree.
Every journey starts with one step. You can do this.
I work as a NP for a large school of medicine and we have a large coding department and need them for sure. Boy they let me know right away when I make a mistake on a pt’s chart that prevents them from coding it correctly.
I think there is a secure future in coding. And ICD 10 is a pain in my ARSE.