Before I begin, here is a little background.  From January of 2007 to August of 2010 I was working for a up and coming telecommunication company, never mind which one.  Due to the economy they reduced staff and I was one of the victims.

No prob, I thought to myself, I'll register for unemployment, send some resumes out, piece of cake.  Yeah. Well, as you can imagine, it is with deep distress that I report that since August, I have received 3 responses to the hundreds or maybe thousands of resumes I have sent out. 

Somewhere around November I conceded to myself that apparently no new job would be forthcoming in 2010.  That realization made I started thinking about what to do.  With over 25 plus years as a working adult and more than 15 in the insurance industry including 10 relating to health insurance I took another look at what options might be available.

Medical claims paying is a job I am familiar with, but now the openings are all requiring certification.  "OK, I can do that, all those online universities are advertising for this kind of class all the time." 

So I started calling around to get costs and options.  Well some of those schools are mighty proud of what the are offering!  One of them told me the cost for the certification would be, ready for this,

$24,000!!!!!!

Ok, that wasn't going to happen and then I realized I hadn't checked with my local community college.  I called HCC, (Houston Community College) and asked if they had a certification program.  Apparently that was the right question as I was routed to the Continuing Education depart and helped by  a wonderful lady, Virginia Thomas, who got me signed up for orientation and gave me the costs for their program:  $1850 for four classes.  That was much more my speed!.

Well orientation went well and I had the class listings, the books I would need and info about a possible grant to cover the cost of the classes.

HCC suggests that you take the classes 2 at a time, mainly so you can get the basics (medical terminology) down before you get to the billing and coding.  So that is what I did and will expect to be completed in early June.