Health Information Technician, Coder and Medical Office Administrator

51.07 Health and Medical Administrative Services · SOC 29-2072

⚠⚠⚠ Three different routes wear this name in Florida, they are taught at roughly the same number of institutions, and only ONE of them leads to the field's professional credential. Health information management — 31 institutions, and the associate degree is what makes you RHIT-eligible. Billing and coding — 37 institutions and the largest output, all clock-hour certificates, none of which does. Medical office administration — 36 institutions into an occupation of 850,000 people with no credential ladder at all. ⚠⚠ Choosing wrongly does not waste a term; it forecloses the credential.

Licensure and accreditation

⚠⚠⚠ RHIT ELIGIBILITY REQUIRES AN ASSOCIATE DEGREE, AND NO CERTIFICATE SUBSTITUTES. AHIMA's rule: you must have completed the academic requirements, at associate degree level, of a Health Information Management programme accredited by CAHIIM. ⚠⚠ AHIMA also states that HEALTH INFORMATICS degrees are NOT currently accepted for RHIT — so the newer, more technical-sounding degree is the wrong one, and that is a real and expensive mistake. Verify CAHIIM accreditation with CAHIIM, not with the school. ⚠⚠⚠ AND ON THE CODING SIDE, WHAT YOU EARN IS AN APPRENTICE CREDENTIAL. Pass AAPC's CPC examination without qualifying experience and you hold CPC-A: the A is for apprentice, and removing it takes TWO YEARS of verified on-the-job coding experience, or ONE year plus AAPC's Practicode or its 80-hour course. ⚠ Employers advertising for a CPC usually mean one without the A — so the credential you need a job to earn is the credential the job asks for. ⚠⚠ Ask any coding programme how its graduates break that circle: a real externship, an employer relationship, or Practicode in the price. A programme with no answer is selling you an examination. ⚠ Nothing on any of these three routes is licensed by Florida. The credential is the whole gate, which is why which one you can reach matters so much.

⚠⚠⚠ Three routes, one name, and only one ladder

Route	FL institutions	FL credentials (2023)	What you get	Credential it reaches
Health information management	31	296 — 109 associate degrees	college CREDIT (`HIM1xxx`/`HIM2xxx`)	✅ RHIT, then RHIA
Billing and coding	⚠ 37	⚠ 416 — all certificates	CLOCK HOURS (`HIM0xxx`)	⚠ CPC — but see CPC-A
Medical office administration	36	242 — all certificates	clock hours	⚠⚠ none

⚠⚠⚠ The route with the WIDEST footprint and the MOST graduates is the one that cannot produce an RHIT. A coding certificate is a real qualification for a real job — but no quantity of it becomes a degree, and the degree is what the profession's credential is built on.

⚠⚠ Florida writes the answer into the course numbers

Number range	What it is	Example
`HIM0xxx`	⚠ CLOCK HOURS — the certificate routes	`HIM0091` Medical Coder/Biller 1, 350 hours
`HIM1xxx` / `HIM2xxx`	✅ COLLEGE CREDIT — the CAHIIM associate degree	`HIM2253` CPT Coding, 9 institutions
`HIM3xxx` / `HIM4xxx`	the bachelor's, at FAMU, UCF, USF, UWF, FGCU, Santa Fe, St Petersburg and Florida Poly	`HIM4218` Electronic Health Records and Health Data

⚠ The level digit is the map. If a programme you are offered is numbered HIM0, it is clock hours, and clock hours do not become a degree by themselves. Ask in writing what will articulate before you enrol, not after.

The occupations

Role	SOC	2025 median	Employed	Openings/yr	Growth 2024–34
Medical records specialist	29-2072	$51,140	194,800	14,200	✅ much faster than average (7%+)
Medical secretary / admin assistant	43-6013	$45,930	⚠⚠ 850,000	⚠⚠ 85,900	average (3–4%)

⚠⚠ The front-office occupation is more than four times the size of the records one and has six times the annual openings. It is much easier to get into and it pays about $5,200 less, and — the part that matters over a career — it has nowhere to go.

⚠⚠ The automation question, answered with the actual number

Everyone considering coding asks whether artificial intelligence will end it. The federal projection does not support that: BLS projects medical records specialists to grow 8 percent from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all occupations, and O*NET agrees at 7% or higher.

⚠ What is changing is the shape of the work, not its quantity. Computer-assisted coding proposes codes and a human validates, corrects and defends them — which moves value toward auditing, denials and clinical documentation improvement, where the question is whether the chart supports the code. Florida already numbers that specialism: HIM3240 CDI Principles and Practice and HIM3243 Coding and Reimbursement for CDI Professionals, both upper division at Santa Fe and St Petersburg.

⚠⚠ So the defensive move is not to avoid coding — it is to aim past pure production coding at audit and CDI, which needs the degree.

⚠ Two coder/biller programmes, 110 hours apart

Florida runs the coder/biller certificate as a three-course clock-hour block, and there are two active statewide families:

Family	Hours	FL institutions
`HIM0091`–`0093` Medical Coder/Biller 1–3	350 + 350 + 320 = 1,020	15
`HIM0071`–`0073` (marked OCP B)	300 + 300 + 310 = 910	7

⚠ Five institutions carry both. Add HIM0009 Introduction to Health Information Technology (90 hours, 18 institutions) and the programme runs roughly 1,000 to 1,100 clock hours either way. Ask which family your programme uses and what the total is; the difference is about three weeks.

⚠ A state title still naming a code set retired in 2015

The statewide title on HIM2222 is Basic ICD-9-CM Coding. The United States retired ICD-9-CM for diagnosis and procedure coding on 1 October 2015.

✅ The carriers are current and the state record is not — Miami Dade, St Petersburg and State College of Florida title it ICD Coding Systems, and Palm Beach State, Tallahassee and Valencia title HIM2222C Applied Inpatient Coding. Florida also numbers ICD-10 work separately at HIM2722, HIM2723 and HIM2724.

⚠⚠ The practical instruction: judge a coding course by the code set on its syllabus, never by the number or the state's title. Ask which code sets and which year's guidelines — ICD-10-CM, ICD-10-PCS, CPT and HCPCS Level II — because coding guidelines change annually and a course running on old ones is worth much less than one that is not.

Necessary skills

Reading a clinical record for what it actually documents, not what you assume happened. This is the whole job, and it is harder than it sounds.
Precision with classification systems — ICD-10-CM, ICD-10-PCS, CPT, HCPCS — and the discipline to look it up rather than recall it.
Anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology at a level that lets you tell whether a code fits a diagnosis.
HIPAA and the law of the record. The medical record is a legal document and you are its custodian.
Willingness to query a physician when documentation does not support a code — the core of clinical documentation improvement, and the skill that separates a coder from an auditor.
Comfort with software that is often bad, because the electronic health record is where you will live.

Advice

⚠⚠⚠ Decide which of the three routes you are on before you pay anyone. They are taught at the same colleges, with similar names, at similar prices, and they end in different places. If there is any chance you will want the RHIT, start on the associate degree.

⚠⚠ Verify CAHIIM accreditation with CAHIIM. And do not accept a health informatics degree as a substitute — AHIMA says plainly that it is not one.

⚠⚠ On the coding route, ask about the CPC-A before anything else. Externship, employer relationship or Practicode — one of those three, or you will finish the programme holding an apprentice credential with no way to remove it.

⚠ Look for a credentialing examination review course in the plan — HIM2960, carried by five institutions. A programme that builds toward the examination is aimed at the credential; one that does not is aimed at the certificate.

And if you are already working the front office, you are better placed than you think. You know how a practice runs, which is the part programmes cannot teach — adding the associate degree is a shorter distance for you than for anyone starting fresh.

Programs that lead here

A program is a field of study, one level above a degree — each page says which degrees it covers and which Florida institutions award them. ⚠ The count is institutions that awarded a credential in the field in 2023; it is not a promise that a school runs this exact degree, and it counts something different from the course-based list further down.

Health Information Management 31 Florida schools

⚠⚠⚠ The only one of the three that reaches the profession's credential. 31 Florida public institutions, 296 credentials, 109 of them associate degrees — and the associate degree from a CAHIIM-accredited programme is what RHIT eligibility requires. ⚠ Read its degrees note on why a health informatics degree will not do instead.

Medical Billing and Coding 37 Florida schools

⚠⚠ The widest footprint — 37 Florida institutions, 416 credentials — and every one a clock-hour certificate, so none of it makes anybody RHIT-eligible. ⚠ A real qualification for a real job; just not a rung on the ladder. Read its note on the CPC-A apprentice trap before enrolling.

Medical Office Administration 36 Florida schools

⚠ The largest job market of the three (850,000 medical secretaries and administrative assistants nationally, 85,900 openings a year) and the only one with no credential ladder at all. ⚠⚠ Easy to enter — 48% of entrants have a high school diploma — and hard to leave, which is why the page recommends treating it as a starting point rather than a purchase.

Medical Assisting 38 Florida schools

⚠ Named because it competes for the same students at the same technical colleges and covers the same administrative work (MEA0501 Medical Office Procedures, MEA0334C Medical Coding and Insurance Billing) PLUS a clinical half. ⚠⚠ It also has four labelled exit points where these routes have none, so it keeps more doors open if you are undecided.

Related, but not a route in

Programs worth knowing about if you are considering this career — ⚠ they do not lead to it. Each row says what it is and is not.

Nursing 78 Florida schools

⚠ Not a route into these jobs — but the reverse move is real and underadvertised. Health information departments hire experienced clinicians into clinical documentation improvement and coding audit, where understanding what a chart MEANS outranks coding speed. ⚠⚠ One of the few desk-based second careers a nurse can reach without starting over.

Careers similar to this one

Careers filed under the same broad field in the federal classification (HEALTH PROFESSIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS) — often they share early coursework, and each row says which group it is filed in. ⚠ Worth reading BEFORE you commit: switching between neighbours is cheap early and expensive late.

Athletic Trainer Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions

⚠⚠⚠ A master's-entry, state-licensed clinical profession paying $62,520 — less than a licensed practical nurse earns on a certificate ($64,400), and less than every associate-degree clinical route on this site except paramedic. ⚠⚠ The profession moved to master's entry in 2022: CAATE states that after the fall 2022 term, baccalaureate degree programmes will no longer enrol students. ⚠ Florida's statute has not caught up and still reads as though a bachelor's is enough.

Dental Hygienist Dental Support Services and Allied Professions

Dental hygienists are licensed clinicians who assess and treat the gums, remove calculus and stains, take and read radiographs, apply preventive agents, and teach patients to look after their own teeth. ⚠ A median of $98,100 on a two-year associate degree — the highest of any two-year route on this site. ⚠⚠ Florida licenses the work under Chapter 466 and requires THREE separate examinations on top of the degree. ⚠⚠⚠ Admission is the hard part, not the coursework: 18 public programmes in the whole state, all limited-access.

Diagnostic Medical Sonographer Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions

Sonographers produce and interpret the ultrasound images physicians diagnose from — deciding in real time which views answer the clinical question, and recognising the difference between healthy and pathological tissue on a screen nobody else is watching. ⚠ A median of $96,590 on a two-year degree, second only to dental hygiene among the two-year routes on this site. ⚠⚠⚠ And a regulatory fact worth knowing before you enrol: Florida does NOT license sonographers, because the statute is written about radiation rather than about imaging.

Health Care Administrator Health and Medical Administrative Services

Running the non-clinical half of health care — budgets, staffing, quality, compliance, revenue, regulators. $123,860 median, 616,200 employed, 62,100 openings a year, growing much faster than average. ⚠⚠ There is no required major: Census microdata puts HEALTH first at 169,319 people, BUSINESS second at 75,396 and PSYCHOLOGY third at 47,154. ⚠⚠⚠ But Florida statute puts a price on the choice — on the nursing home side, a health administration major halves the required training programme from 2,000 hours to 1,000.

Licensed Practical Nurse Practical Nursing, Vocational Nursing and Nursing Assistants

LPNs give direct nursing care under an RN or physician — medications, wounds, vital signs, assessment — and supervise aides. ⚠ It is the widest-taught credential on this site (48 Florida institutions, 1,322 completions a year), a median of $64,400, and the one field where Florida law publishes each programme's licence-examination pass rate before you enrol. Look it up.

Medical Assistant and Pharmacy Technician Allied Health and Medical Assisting Services

Two of the largest short-certificate routes into health care in Florida, paying within $60 a year of each other and taught at the same technical colleges — and the state treats them completely differently. ⚠⚠⚠ Florida writes down in statute exactly what a medical assistant may do, including venipuncture and administering medication, and requires NO licence, certificate or training to do it. It requires a pharmacy technician, working behind a counter, to register with the Board of Pharmacy and complete a board-approved programme. ⚠⚠ And the medical assisting programme has FOUR labelled exit points you can leave on and be hired at — the pharmacy technician programme has none.

Medical Laboratory Scientist Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions

Medical laboratory scientists produce the results a diagnosis is made from — haematology, clinical chemistry, microbiology, immunology and the blood bank — and catch the result that is wrong before a physician acts on it. ⚠⚠ Florida is one of the few states that LICENSES this work: you may not report a clinical laboratory result here without a licence. ⚠⚠⚠ Read the wage section before you commit: this is a four-year degree paying less than three of the two-year health paths on this site, and that trade-off is the honest centre of this page.

Nurse Practitioner and Advanced Practice Nurse Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing

⚠⚠⚠ Florida grants nurse practitioners autonomous practice — and almost every account of it omits the limit that matters. Autonomous registration covers PRIMARY CARE ONLY. It does not let you practise your specialty without a physician protocol, and only certified midwives are excepted. 11,201 APRNs were registered for autonomous practice as of the 2024 legislative analysis. ⚠⚠ The occupation itself is nearly twice the size of the physician assistant profession — 320,400 employed, 29,500 openings a year, $132,300 median.

Occupational Therapy Assistant Allied Health and Medical Assisting Services

Occupational therapy assistants deliver the treatment that gets people back to doing ordinary things — dressing, cooking, writing, working, playing — after injury, stroke, developmental delay or mental illness. ⚠ A median of $72,300 on a two-year degree, growing 21%. ⚠⚠⚠ And the finding worth acting on: it pays MORE and grows FASTER than the physical therapist assistant, and Florida trains a QUARTER as many. Four institutions, 57 graduates a year. This page covers the assistant, the aide and the therapist.

Paramedic Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions

Paramedics are the highest level of prehospital care — assessing and stabilising at the scene, administering drugs, managing advanced airways, reading ECGs and running a cardiac arrest before the patient reaches a hospital. ⚠ Median $60,600, reached through a certificate rather than a degree, and stacked on top of a short EMT course most people complete first. ⚠⚠ In Florida this is substantially a FIRE SERVICE credential: departments pay for it and pay extra for holding it. ⚠⚠⚠ And the accreditation rule here is the strictest on this site — the wrong programme leaves you unable to certify at all.

Pharmacist Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Administration

⚠⚠ One route: the Doctor of Pharmacy, awarded in Florida's public system by UF, FAMU and USF (about 412 a year). ⚠⚠ Admission turns on two or more years of prerequisite science, not a bachelor's degree: UF's minimum is an associate degree, and more than half of Pharm.D. applications nationally come from people without a bachelor's. Median pay is $140,910 nationally and $135,970 in Florida. BLS expects retail demand to be limited as prescriptions move online and by mail.

Phlebotomist Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions

The shortest formal route into health care Florida operates. ⚠⚠⚠ Of 772 phlebotomy credentials awarded by 29 Florida public institutions in 2023, EVERY ONE was a certificate of under twelve weeks — about 165 clock hours, most of it at a district technical college. It pays $45,230, essentially the same as a medical assistant or a pharmacy technician on ten times the training. ⚠⚠ And Florida's clinical laboratory licensing statute names phlebotomists in its EXCLUSION, one rung below two occupations the same statute licenses.

See every career in HEALTH PROFESSIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS →

Courses along this path

Selected, not exhaustive — the courses specific to this path plus the foundations it is built on. A course number does not identify a course in Florida: always check your own institution's catalog and take a syllabus to an adviser.

HIM0009 —Introduction to Health Information Technology Request a guide

Introduction to Health Information Technology — 90 clock hours, 18 institutions. The shared entry block of Florida's clock-hour health-information certificates: the record, its law, its privacy and its vocabulary.

⚠ ⚠ Clock hours, not credit. If a degree may follow, ask what will articulate before you start.

HIM0091 —Medical Coder/Biller I Request a guide

Medical Coder/Biller 1 — 350 clock hours, 15 institutions. The first third of the larger of Florida's two coder/biller families.

⚠ ⚠⚠ TWO active statewide families: HIM0091–0093 at 350+350+320 = 1,020 hours (15 institutions) and HIM0071–0073, marked OCP B, at 300+300+310 = 910 hours (7). Five institutions carry both. Ask which yours runs.

HIM0092 —Medical Coder/Biller II Request a guide

Medical Coder/Biller 2 — 350 clock hours, 15 institutions. Diagnosis and procedure coding in practice.

HIM0093 —Medical Coder/Biller III Request a guide

Medical Coder/Biller 3 — 320 clock hours, 15 institutions. Reimbursement, claims and the denial cycle, which is where coding actually meets money.

HIM1000 —Introduction to Health Information Management Request a guide

Introduction to Health Information Management — 15 institutions, and the first course of the CREDIT route. ⚠ If your catalogue offers you this rather than HIM0009, you are on the degree track.

⚠ ⚠ Four institutions carry the integrated HIM1000C instead.

HIM2012 —Health Law Concepts and Practices Guide

Legal Aspects of Health Information Management — 14 institutions, the second most widely carried credit course in the prefix. HIPAA, release of information, retention, subpoenas, and the record as a legal document.

HIM2253 —Basic CPT Coding Request a guide

CPT Coding — 9 institutions. Procedural coding, and the code set outpatient and physician billing runs on.

⚠ ⚠ Five institutions carry the integrated HIM2253C instead.

HIM2723 —Icd-10-Pcs Coding Request a guide

ICD-10-PCS Coding — 7 institutions. Inpatient procedure coding, the hardest of the code sets and the one hospital reimbursement turns on.

HIM2222 —Icd Coding Systems_ Request a guide

⚠⚠ ICD Coding Systems — 3 institutions, with 3 more carrying HIM2222C as Applied Inpatient Coding. Named here for a warning: the STATEWIDE title on this number still reads Basic ICD-9-CM Coding, a code set the United States retired on 1 October 2015.

⚠ ⚠⚠⚠ The carriers are current and the state record is not. Judge a coding course by the code set on its syllabus and the guideline year — never by the number or the statewide title.

HIM2214 —Healthcare Statistics Request a guide

Health Statistics — 8 institutions. Case-mix index, length of stay, mortality and morbidity rates: the reporting a health information department produces and the reason the job is analytic rather than clerical.

⚠ ⚠ Four institutions carry HIM2214C instead.

HIM2512 —Supervision, Organization and Management Request a guide

Supervision and Organization — 10 institutions. The supervisory content that distinguishes the degree from the certificate, and the reason the degree leads somewhere.

HIM2810 —PPE: Revenue Cycle Functions Request a guide

Directed Practice II — 8 institutions, and where several run it as revenue-cycle work. ⚠ The professional practice experience is also the thing most likely to solve the CPC-A experience problem, so ask what it involves.

⚠ ⚠ Placement means Florida Level 2 background screening and HIPAA training — start them in week one of the term before.

HIM2960 —Credentialing Exam Review Request a guide

⚠ Credentialing Exam Review — 5 institutions. A programme that carries this is aiming its students at the RHIT examination rather than at a certificate, which is exactly the signal to look for.

HIM3240 —Cdi Principles and Practice Request a guide

⚠⚠ CDI Principles and Practice — upper division, Santa Fe and St Petersburg. Clinical documentation improvement is where the field is moving as computer-assisted coding takes over production work, and Florida already numbers it.

⚠ ⚠ Upper division, so it needs the associate degree first — another reason the degree route matters.

HIM4218 —Electronic Health Records and Health Databases Request a guide

Electronic Health Records and Health Data — upper division at UCF and UWF. The bachelor's-level treatment, on the route to RHIA.

HSC1531 —Medical Terminology Request a guide

Medical Terminology — 16 institutions. Unavoidable: you cannot code or abstract a record you cannot read.

⚠ ⚠ Florida numbers this twice: HSC1531 at 16 institutions and HSC2531 at 8.

OST2335 —Business Communications Request a guide

Business Communications — 10 institutions. The front-office route's most widely carried credit course, and the skill a practice actually hires on.

BSC2085 —Anatomy and Physiology I Guide

Anatomy and Physiology I — 20 institutions. ⚠ Coding accuracy rests on anatomy; several HIM programmes substitute their own HIM1453 Medical Records Anatomy and Physiology, which is credit but transfers less widely.

⚠ ⚠ Two equivalent packagings: BSC2085 plus BSC2085L at 20 institutions, combined BSC2085C at 7. Take the general version if a further degree is possible.

Where you can take these courses in Florida

50 Florida public institutions teach courses on this path. The count is how many of the 18 listed courses each one carries — it shows where the path is best covered. It is not a statement that a school offers this as a degree; for that, check the institution’s own programme list.

NFC

North Florida College

9 of 18

SPC

St. Petersburg College

9 of 18

Broward College

8 of 18

FGC

Florida Gateway College

8 of 18

College of Central Florida

6 of 18

FSWSC

Florida Southwestern State College

6 of 18

FSCJ

Florida State College at Jacksonville

6 of 18

Hillsborough College

6 of 18

MDC

Miami Dade College

6 of 18

PHSC

Pasco-Hernando State College

6 of 18

SSCF

Seminole State College of Florida

6 of 18

SJRSC

St. Johns River State College

6 of 18

Valencia College

6 of 18

LSSC

Lake-Sumter State College

5 of 18

ATC

Atlantic Technical College

4 of 18

CCTC

Cape Coral Technical College

4 of 18

CTC

Charlotte Technical College

4 of 18

ETC

Erwin Technical College

4 of 18

FLAGTC

Flagler Technical College

4 of 18

WHTC

Florida Panhandle Technical College

4 of 18

FMTC

Fort Myers Technical College

4 of 18

ITECH

Immokalee Technical College

4 of 18

IRSC

Indian River State College

4 of 18

MTI

Manatee Technical College

4 of 18

MTC

Marion Technical College

4 of 18

OTCWP

Orange Technical College-Winter Park

4 of 18

TECO

Osceola Technical College

4 of 18

PESC

Pensacola State College

4 of 18

PTCSP

Pinellas Technical College-St Petersburg

4 of 18

SFC

Santa FE College

4 of 18

STC

Sheridan Technical College

4 of 18

TSC

Tallahassee State College

4 of 18

NWFSC

Northwest Florida State College

3 of 18

DSC

Daytona State College

2 of 18

EFSC

Eastern Florida State College

2 of 18

FAMU

Florida A & M University

2 of 18

GCSC

Gulf Coast State College

2 of 18

PSC

Polk State College

2 of 18

SFSC

South Florida State College

2 of 18

SCFMS

State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota

2 of 18

DADEC

D.a. Dorsey Technical College

1 of 18

FAU

Florida Atlantic University

1 of 18

FIU

Florida International University

1 of 18

FSU

Florida State University

1 of 18

NCF

New College of Florida

1 of 18

PBSC

Palm Beach State College

1 of 18

RTC

Ridge Technical College

1 of 18

UCF

University of Central Florida

1 of 18

USF

University of South Florida

1 of 18

UWF

University of West Florida

1 of 18

Sources

Requirements change. These are the authorities that decide them — check them directly before committing to a route.

O*NET — Medical Records Specialists (29-2072.00) — 194,800 employed (2024), growth much faster than average (7% or higher), 14,200 annual openings, median $51,140 (2025). Education 52% high school diploma, 22% postsecondary certificate, 13% some college. Tasks include compiling and maintaining records, identifying and coding patient data using standard classification systems, protecting record security, reviewing for regulatory compliance, and assigning diagnosis-related groups.
BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook — Medical Records Specialists — ⚠ Quoted on the page because it answers the automation question with a number: employment is projected to grow 8 percent from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all occupations, about 14,000 openings a year, median $51,140 (May 2025). ✅ BLS and O*NET AGREE here, which is not always the case. Typical entry-level education: postsecondary nondegree award.
O*NET — Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants (43-6013.00) — ⚠⚠ The largest of the three routes by employment and the one with no ladder: 850,000 employed, 85,900 annual openings, growth average (3% to 4%), median $45,930 (2025). Education 48% high school diploma, 26% associate degree, 20% postsecondary certificate.
AHIMA — RHIT examination eligibility — ⚠⚠⚠ The rule the page turns on: a candidate must have successfully completed the academic requirements, at an associate degree level, of a Health Information Management programme accredited by CAHIIM (or an approved foreign equivalent). ⚠⚠ AHIMA further states that HEALTH INFORMATICS degrees are not currently accepted for the RHIT examination — so a certificate does not qualify and neither does the newer-sounding degree.
AAPC — removing the CPC-A apprentice designation — ⚠⚠⚠ Pass the CPC without qualifying experience and you hold CPC-A. Removal requires verification of TWO YEARS of on-the-job coding experience (externships count), or ONE year plus AAPC's Practicode or its 80-hour medical coding course. Processing takes two to four weeks. ⚠ Employers advertising for a CPC generally mean one without the A.
IPEDS Completions 2023 (C2023_A) — CIP 51.07 sub-codes — ⚠⚠ The three routes, measured. Health information management (51.0707 + 51.0706): 31 Florida public institutions, 296 credentials, 109 associate and 127 bachelor's. Billing and coding (51.0714): 37 institutions, 416 credentials, ALL certificates. Office administration (51.0716 + 51.0705 + 51.0710 + 51.0702): 36 institutions, 242, all certificates. ⚠ Health care ADMINISTRATION (51.0701) is separate and far larger — 24 institutions, 1,293 credentials, mostly bachelor's and master's.
SCNS statewide course file — the HIM prefix — ⚠⚠ The level digit separates the routes: HIM0xxx are clock hours, HIM1xxx/HIM2xxx college credit, HIM3xxx/HIM4xxx the bachelor's. ⚠ Two active coder/biller families — HIM0091–0093 at 350+350+320 hours (15 carriers) and HIM0071–0073, OCP B, at 300+300+310 (7), with five institutions carrying both. ⚠⚠⚠ And HIM2222's statewide title still reads BASIC ICD-9-CM CODING, a code set retired in the United States on 1 October 2015, while all six carriers title it ICD-10 work.

Last updated 23 September 2026.