Contempo Coding Podcast

Career Tips from Sarah Ragan: Medical Coding Jobs, Resumes, and More

Victoria Moll

In this podcast, I have a conversation with Sarah Reagan, a medical coding educator, where we discuss her journey from being a medical assistant to a coding professional. Sarah shares how she stumbled into the field of medical coding, her experiences working with insurance companies, and how she eventually became a coder after realizing the impact of coding errors. We also explore her transition to resume writing services, helping coders improve their job prospects. If you're interested in medical coding or need resume advice, this video will give you insights and tips!

Caffeinated Career Creations - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082968423010
Sarah on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-ragan-coc-cpc-cpma-crc-cfpc-aapc-approved-instructor-65987a91/

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Speaker 2:

It's time for the Contempo Coding Podcast Discussions, knowledge and insight to help you succeed in the medical coding industry. And now here's your host, victoria. Hey everyone, thanks for coming back to the channel. I am here today with Sarah Reagan. Sarah Reagan is a coding educator who has spoken virtually in all 50 states, plus the Bahamas and Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico Puerto Rico In English, though not in Spanish. Yeah, definitely not in Spanish. That's not the next thing, is it? No, it's not. Maybe it should be, though it could be, you never know and she enjoys creating and presenting interesting educational content and encouraging everyone she meets. She's here today as a speaker at HealthCon Regional. Thank you, sarah, for taking time out of conference to come and talk to the channel today. I was so happy to do it. I was thrilled. So, sarah, I need you to take us back a little bit. I don't think you're as maybe far back as maybe some people might think, but how did you get involved in medical coding?

Speaker 1:

Okay, I got involved in medical coding. First of all, I should say I started off as a medical assistant. Okay, so I was working as a medical assistant and I had a job interview at a hospital in Orlando. And when I went to the hospital interview I got lost. And this was kind of before cell phones, so that kind of tells you how long ago it was and I was walking through the hallways of this very large hospital in Orlando just feeling so dumb and stupid because I got lost again. And as I was wandering around, I walked into a job fair for patient financial services and since I had already missed my interview as a medical assistant, I was like well, while I'm here, let me go see what this is. I don't even know what patient financial services is. And I walked in and I took their test and I passed it and they hired me on the spot. Oh, wow. So, yeah, yeah, that's how that worked out. And so I started working in emergency room registration. That was exciting. I think I probably enjoy it now more than I did back then. I exciting I think I probably enjoy it now more than I did back then.

Speaker 1:

I did not really have the patience for it and so as soon as there was an opening in registration not emergency room I took it and I ended up doing authorizations and referrals, and it was for surgeries. And I was doing that, learning all about how to work with the insurance companies, calling up getting the benefits, the eligibility, learning the differences between co-pays and deductibles and co-insurance, and all of that. And then I started working on the authorizations and I noticed that some things got denied and some things were approved and I was like, huh, I wonder why that happens the way that does. And they said give us a code. And I'm like a code for what had no idea. And so I was telling my boss about it and he was like, oh yeah, those are CPT codes. He's like here's a book, figure it out. And so, yeah, and the book he gave me was like 10 years old, but yeah, so cause I wasn't a coder, so I'm not really all that invested in it. And so I just was like, well, I'm going to figure this out. And so I started looking through the book. I'm like, well, that makes sense, that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

And eventually I started noticing the ones that got approved versus the ones that got denied and checking out their codes. So I thought to myself well, it's the same, you know, it's the same procedure. That one has one code and got approved. That one has a different code and got denied. So I bet you that's just a mistake, I'll just fix it and resubmit it, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

And then this yeah, not really what I was supposed to be doing, but I was like why not? So I did, and I ended up like I got called into the office and it wasn't to get in trouble. It was to say you recovered like $250,000 that we were about to write off and it's in here and your name is on every single one of them. What did you do? And I said, well, the codes were wrong. And they said you want to be a coder? And I was like, what's a coder? So they paid for me to go to school to be a coder and that's kind of how it went. I spent 14 years doing authorizations and referrals and then I became a coder. After that so long story, where did you do your training?

Speaker 1:

for coding I actually went to Herzen University and it was an online class, which back in 2008, not really all that common, but I at the time had three young children who were at home, and my husband was an over-the-road truck driver, so I never knew when he was going to be home, so the only time I had to work on school was after they all went to bed for a night. So I was a student basically from 9 pm to about midnight every single night, learning how to be a coder.

Speaker 2:

So since then, how many specialties have you worked in in medical coding?

Speaker 1:

I've done risk adjustment. I've done family practice. I've done. I did vascular for a little while. I've done some pediatrics, a little bit of OBGYN. That's it for right now.

Speaker 2:

Okay, Do you have a particular favorite?

Speaker 1:

I'll be honest with you, one of my favorites is behavioral health. Really, I have not done specifically I've not done any behavioral health, except for when it comes across in risk adjustment, when there's some, you know, like bipolar disorder or dementia of some sort. But I really enjoy those and in fact when I was at HealthCon today earlier, that was one of the ones that I took was mental health coding.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I like that. So you know, it sounds like you've had kind of a variety of different things that you've done, but one of the things you're known for, though, is your resume services. So how did you go from working in coding to working in education, and now you're offering resume services? Like what made you decide to make that transition?

Speaker 1:

That sort of fell in my lap too, just like coding did. So after a few years of being a coder, I got a second job, which needed a little bit of extra money. And so I took a second job as an instructor at a local school near me in central Florida and I had the most amazing students and they were so engaged and so ready to start their new lives as coders. And then, hard stop, can't find that job. And I said, well, what's's going on? Can you show me your resume? And so they were showing me their resume and I was like, oh, I see the problem like this is, this is bad. Yeah, and you know you're and I know you and you're amazing and you're so smart and I don't even know your coder. Based on this, like you've got nothing on here that would make me say hire this person, she, she's amazing.

Speaker 1:

And so on my own, I started helping my students with their resumes and the next thing I know I'm getting phone calls like how near are you? Or I got a job offer. It's not coding, it's front desk, but at least I'm there. And I was telling my husband about it and just saying I'm so proud of them and he was like you're spending a whole lot of time working with people, helping them with their resumes. He encouraged me to start my own resume business and I was like there's other people in this industry who do.

Speaker 1:

And I said I don't need to do it. And he's like, well, those people aren't calling the other people in the industry, are they? They're calling you. And I was like, oh man, that's a good point, yeah. So I decided like I was like I'm going to do this. And I was like you know what, if I make an extra hundred bucks a week, I will just be so happy. Nothing wrong with that, that's well, it used to be grocery money, it's not anymore.

Speaker 1:

But, I was like you know, that would be awesome, and so I started putting things together. I made a list of things that I wanted to offer, including resumes, cover letters. I'm a huge fan of LinkedIn, so I have that on there and I just thought to myself all right, let's just see what happens. And they broke down the door and I was shocked by I just shocked, but thrilled at the same time. And I'm not the point I'm booked two months out. Oh my God, I can't believe it. I'm just like I never in my wildest dreams thought that this would happen.

Speaker 2:

But here we are, two months out. Walk me through the process, because when you get a resume, what is the process of someone who's looking for services or you for a resume? Do they just like send you your resume and you just polish it and send it back? No, not at all.

Speaker 1:

So my resume service. I actually book a 30 minute consultation. Ok, it's not a form that you fill out. I have my own template that I have, where I take notes on people. But I ask questions. It's because sometimes people just really need to talk things out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I do a Google Meet link, I send that over and we meet virtually and I just ask all these questions. And sometimes people don't really want to talk and they just want to get off the link and send their resume and being done with it. But there's a lot of people that really want to talk and really have tons of questions to ask and I don't know if I should do this or this, what do you think? And so we talk. It's a little bit of career planning at the same time, and not only that, but it helps to create lifelong friendships, lifelong professional friendships, that they'll come back to me later on and say I got this amazing job and because of you I got to do this and now, because of that, I'm now moving on to this and I just love. I love getting the stories back.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm sure it's extremely rewarding. It is so you book this time with these, with these people, and I think they're probably having maybe some aha moments during those discussions where they're like, oh you know what, I didn't even realize that I did all of these things and that should be incorporated in my resume.

Speaker 1:

That happens a lot where people don't give themselves credit for the hard work that they've done, or they say I don't want to brag. And I'm like no, no, this is the time Exactly. I'm like, if you are ever going to brag about yourself, it's this and your interview.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was like you can. And then your annual review after that.

Speaker 1:

I'm like I might be adding that, but no, this is not a time to be humble at all. I'm like you have got to toot your own horn because that's your horn.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no one else is going to toot it for you, no, no. So, with all of the resumes that you've seen for medical coders, what are some of the most common mistakes that you're seeing out there, and what can these?

Speaker 1:

job seekers do, to kind of avoid making them Okay. So one of the first thing I would say is that people are not stating that they're coders, and you would think that that would be a fairly obvious thing. But I've had resumes come over my desk where I've had someone who has four, five, six coding credentials and it's on the bottom of page six. Oh, and I was like that needs to be up at the top. Yeah, so that way they can see it. Because we have seen online there's been studies that recruiters and hiring managers spend six seconds. Yeah, six seconds. I'm like that is not a long period of time. So really, the best information on your resume needs to be in the top half of the paper.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've had resumes that, like one of the things I used to look for when I was hiring coders is at the very top of their name. I would want to see their credentials behind it, because if I'm only looking at that for a couple of seconds and I just see it says Mary Smith and I don't see a CPC next to it, I'm like, oh, they just mistakenly filed for this, they're not actually a coder, they're not credentialed and it's not looking at it Exactly.

Speaker 1:

So I had these amazingly educated, credentialed, worthy candidates of these jobs and you can't tell, based on just the way they present themselves instantly. Another thing I would say is having a really horrible email I've seen some.

Speaker 2:

So the ones that you created in middle school, not thinking and just are still used.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I'm just like, look, if your birthday is April 20th 1969, I'm sorry you have not to change your email address. It's bad. Sorry, I know it sounds terrible, but um and anything having a a sexual connotation, alcohol or drug connotation, racist connotation, I've seen it all. Um, there was one that I saw then if she's listening to me, I'm not picking on you, I swear, but her email was I hate all of you at somethingcom. Okay, yeah, and it was something that ran. I laughed.

Speaker 1:

I was like see that for your personal life, it's like you have to have a professional email, so those would be it. Other things would be just not listing things in chronological order, lying about the dates that you've worked, because that's an easy thing to check. If you left a job in May of 2015, then don't say it was July. It was May. Be honest.

Speaker 2:

What are your thoughts on cover letters? I know some people love them, some people hate them. I get questions about, like well, should I make one? Should I make one for each job that I'm applying for? Like where do you kind of lie with the cover letter? Okay, so the cover letter.

Speaker 1:

Like you said, some people absolutely hate them. I don't want to say I love them, but they don't bother me one bit. And I have one. I haven't used one in a while. I would definitely say that if you're moving from one industry to another, you need one because you're going to want to explain to someone why you've decided to move from, let's just say, nursing to coding and or from retail to coding, something like that. I mean they kind of want to know why the big change. The other thing is addressing resume or not resume gaps, but employment gaps.

Speaker 1:

So I did a resume for my own son and he missed time from work because he had COVID. Oh okay, he took time off from work to take care of my parents who had COVID. My parents caught COVID the day I started a brand new job. I had no PTO saved up. So he was like mom, if you make my car payment, I'll go take care of Nana and Papa. And I was like, just go. I was like, please go take care of them, I'll go take care of Nana and Papa. And I was like, just go. I was like, please go take care of them, I'll go ahead and I will make your car payment. Just go do what you got to do, yeah, so he took care of my parents for like a month, and then after that he came down with it.

Speaker 1:

So he had a three month gap, yeah. And so he was like I don't know what I'm going to do about this mom. I'm like this is easy. I was like, well, just going to explain it. I mean, I think almost everyone had some type of a gap during that time anyway. And when he finally applied for a job, one of the first things they said was a young man in his 20s who's taking care of his grandparents. That's the kind of person we want. And so he got the job. So it worked out great.

Speaker 2:

I have a lot of viewers that are like hey, you know I'm switching over. Like you've talked about, they're going from working to retail into medical coding. They don't have a lot of the medical coding health care experience. How does someone who has very limited experience make their resume more appealing to employers?

Speaker 1:

their resume more appealing to employers. The first thing I'm going to tell you to do is get involved in your local chapter. That is probably the premier thing that you can do, even if you are not available to be an officer, because I know sometimes being an officer can take up some time in your life. If you have even five hours a week, which really isn't that much, to spend on your chapter, I say, do it. And elections are coming up. I know we're filming this in August, so elections are coming up in October.

Speaker 1:

Consider being an officer, first of all, the officers that are there right now. They're tired. We've been officers for a long time and you know what it's not supposed to be every year, what Sarah wants or what Victoria wants. I want some fresh information coming in, and you may have contacts that I don't have Right. So by all means, do it. I learned so much from being an officer. If you think about it, by volunteering your time to be an officer, you're gaining experience that in a college experience or in a college environment you'd be paying for it, yeah, but instead you get to do it for free and you get to put it on your resume, and I will say that as an officer myself for my local chapter. Every time I've been on an interview it's been brought up every single time. So it's very much valued and you're going to get to network with the people who do make the hiring decisions.

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely. You'll find out firsthand when things are going to be, like opening up position wise. I've even had some organizations where, like, some of the management crew was not as savvy as about everything in medical coding and I would mention that I was an officer and that they thought that was like the most impressive thing, like oh my God, you're president of a chapter. That's so fantastic, and I'm like it's really not. But okay, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, and I mean, and you can, even as a CPCA. For anyone who's listening, you can be the chapter president as a CPCA. Yeah, so by all means do not think that just because you don't have coding experience yet that you cannot be a member. I've had people say that to me a lot. Oh, I'm brand new, I can't do that. Yes, you can Now get your butt in here.

Speaker 2:

So I've seen these different hacks coming in about medical well, just about resumes in general, where people will say, oh, here's a thing you can do and I didn't get any interviews, but then I did this hack and now all of my resumes you know they're calling me back and so forth. And one that's been getting around is people will say to copy and paste, like the job description from the application and then like, paste it in the bottom of your resume in white and in tiny font so you can't see it and it looks invisible, but then when you search into the ATS it'll come up. What are your thoughts on kind of hacking your resume?

Speaker 1:

What are your thoughts on kind of hacking your resume? I don't recommend honestly hacking. First of all, if you do that, when it gets uploaded the formatting is going to get thrown off and then nothing is going to line up right. When you do that a job and you're going to take that job description and put it in your resume, why not put it where they're going to see it, which is going to be in your professional statement, rather than hidden in the bottom and blank and white? That makes no sense.

Speaker 1:

So I do recommend tailoring resumes and I know a lot of people are like oh, I have to do a resume for every job. That's ridiculous. That's not what I mean. What I mean is that take a few of the keywords that are in the job that you're looking at and place it in the top half again of your resume and make sure that that's there. So if you are looking specifically for you know AR2, you know because a lot of us work in accounts receivable, you know. Use the words that are in the AR2 description that they're using and make sure it's in your professional statement and that should really do the trick in order to get it picked up and, you's more important to have terms in there that are related to revenue cycle related to the systems that we use, versus the kind of buzzwords like detail oriented.

Speaker 2:

They put in there a lot, you know, driven and, yes, energy.

Speaker 1:

I feel like it would be a lot more productive to have in those skill sets that they're looking for than just the kind of like I can work in a fast paced environment kind of thing. Yeah, so I definitely focus on skills when I'm putting together people's resumes. Things like what EMR systems have you worked in? Is it Epic? Is it Cerner? Is it Allscripts? Do you speak any other languages? That's a really good one to use.

Speaker 1:

Do you have excellent writing skills? Just because you don't know how to write a resume doesn't mean that you don't have great writing skills. You can be fantastic at writing research articles. You may have been a person who has published an article in the. It used to be called Healthcare Business Monthly. Now it's ACC Magazine. My brain does not want to wrap around that, it's HCBM, but write articles. If you've ever written an article, that would be great. Add your chapter officer experience there as well. Research skills, writing skills, communication skills are huge. I think we've all talked to people who don't know how to communicate and it's frustrating, whether it's in person, on the phone, email, slack, whatever.

Speaker 2:

You have to be able to talk to people, especially remotely, where you may not always know their tone, yeah, and even things like just the ability to follow official guidelines, like federal guidelines even if it's like OSHA or something that you're doing in a non-healthcare related aspect where you're following food safety guidelines, being able to say that you know how to follow those policies that are set forth you know how to follow those sort of those policies that are set forth.

Speaker 1:

Being able to understand legal documents as well is a really big one. And also let me just say this I have a lot of resumes that come across my desk from people who used to be teachers, and so I always say the fact that you know how to teach, that you know how to put together education, that you understand how to grab people's attention and teach them something, and let's not forget that they know how to work on IEPs, and if you can figure out how to do an IEP, then you should be able to figure out a coding guideline with no problem.

Speaker 2:

And mine's together in audit. What?

Speaker 1:

And I've had a couple of teachers say I never thought that IEPs were sort of like coding, but they are and I was like they kind of are.

Speaker 2:

They're kind of set up very similarly. So you know, I think teachers in particular make really good coders. Okay, networking is a really key factor in job searching in our industry. How can medical coders effectively network in person and online to increase their chances of finding a job?

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's break that one down In person. You got to show up. We have events at our chapter, and I'm sure any other chapter who is listening to this right now will probably agree with me. You create these events. You have a chapter that has 500 people in it and 14 people show up. Yeah, and I realized that. You know, maybe you had something else going on that weekend. Maybe you know it was your weekend to get the kids and you know you weren't able to make it. I get that, but there are so many events that are available for people to get together and network and you're not showing up, yeah, yeah. And so if you're not networking at these events, you're missing out completely. First of all, even if it doesn't result in a job for you, it's going to result in professional relationships that will last you a lifetime. Not only that, but we're fun people and there's usually coffee. You know it's not so bad hanging out with us, we're okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the networking events are usually a little more lively yeah.

Speaker 1:

We were just at the officers meeting yesterday and somebody said that they rented a DJ for theirs. I need to go to this one. I was like I'm part of the wrong chapter. I was like, wait a minute, I'm in charge of that. I can get a DJ.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my old chapter. They used to be very alcohol driven and I'm like guys, no, the chapter funds are not allowed to be used for that. You want to have a drink? That's fine. We can have a bar or pay for the bartender to dispense Sprite and Coke, and then, if you also would like a drink, but we cannot, no, I can't do that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we actually tried to do an event where people could bring their kids, and so, and, and that one turned out really good. We had it in the park. Uh, unfortunately I don't know what we were thinking, but we did it in july, so you know, I'm in florida, yeah, it was brutally hot outside, um, but, and we actually brought our spouses, our partners, with us and it was actually that part was the most interesting part, because all of the husbands and boyfriends were standing up talking about things that their wives and girlfriends were doing and how it changed their lives for the better, and the spouse was like I was sitting there going, I just felt the better. But we I mean a lot of times people are hesitant to become an officer because they're worried about how it's going to, you know, how it's going to impact our household. So when our partners were saying how things were going, you're like, oh, this is doable and you should, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I think the one thing that tends to frustrate my partner is, uh, when I was doing a lot of speaking engagements for the chapters, they're always around six, seven o'clock and he's like that's supper time, like why are we? And I'm like I know we got to either get it early or late or something, or you got to figure something out like, but it's not. So it gets frustrating when, when you're like taking on additional assignments like that. But I think the requirements for chapters have been relaxed enough that I think you'll need what like four events or something a year, I believe it's two in-person events and then four virtual events, which my chapter goes way over that.

Speaker 1:

And if I'm wrong about that, I'm sorry I don't have the handbook in front of me. Don't shut the messenger about that, I'm sorry, I don't have the handbook in front of me. Don't don't shut the messenger. Um, as far as networking in in or online events, you can turn your camera on and talk. Yeah, I actually encourage, uh, the chapters our chapter does this, but I have attended other chapters that don't come in 15 to 20 minutes early and just let people chat with each other instead of just turning it on and going straight to business.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, you know I turn on my camera, which you know, and so, like, literally, my kids are walking behind me and saying, hi, I'm picking up the dogs. I'm like here it is, you know, and I'm trying to let them see like I'm a real person, like yeah, I have a house I've got. You know there's laundry behind me. You know, here's the dog. I got to let the dog out real fast. You know that kind of thing. And once you start turning on the camera and engaging people and asking questions, next thing I know I see a camera turn on.

Speaker 2:

Which is fine, as long as it's an appropriate. Like you know, you have your camera on, because I've seen some people, people, that I'm like they're signing on with their cell phone and I'm like do they know that we can see them, like, carrying their phone around their whole area? Or yeah, yeah, please don't.

Speaker 1:

Don't, don't code and drive. Don't do it, it's bad or the.

Speaker 2:

Every now and then I've spoken to chapters and people have their cameras on and I don't know I don't know if they realize it or not, but I can see them and they're like rolling their eyes and like I'm like okay, if you're just gonna roll your eyes at me, could you please just turn your camera right?

Speaker 1:

and also please, let your, please let your husband know, like, make sure he's wearing a towel, because I I have seen things um, but congratulations on that marriage.

Speaker 2:

So another big aspect that's really blossomed over the past few years as far as networking is LinkedIn Like how can they optimize their LinkedIn profiles to make sure that they're getting all of those jobs posting in their feed and that they're attracting recruiters or attracting hiring managers?

Speaker 1:

Okay, there's a lot to unpack there. The first thing I want to say is please upload a picture that's not of your dog or your cat even though I love dogs and cats. That is a picture that you would not be ashamed to show your mom. Right, because I've seen some things there too. Make sure that your credentials are after your name on your linkedin um, and then also um.

Speaker 1:

You can actually go into linkedin and click on the job sections. There's a tab up at the top and you can type in the types of jobs that you want and you will get notifications. And if you choose to get notifications, sometimes you'll just get an email. Um, I had to turn her notifications off. It was driving me bonkers, but, um, you can do that.

Speaker 1:

You can also follow companies that you're interested in. You can follow insurance companies. You can follow hospitals. You can follow even even small businesses tend to have a LinkedIn presence of some sort and, I would say, also follow places like the OIG, you know. You can follow CMS online. You can follow AHIMA and AAPC online and see all the things that they're doing, and once you start clicking on those things, the people who then follow them will start showing up and you may recognize some of our names on there. And then, once you start clicking, all of a sudden you start.

Speaker 1:

Linkedin has some type of a search engine where, whenever you click on someone's name, the people that they follow will start popping up. So you can very easily just start adding to your, adding to your I guess your library of people Are they called friends on LinkedIn, I don't know. Connections Connections, I think that's it, so you can get as many. I have over 6,000 connections right now, so I don't hear from all of them all the time and I kind of don't want to, but it's great to know that they're there. And there's even some study groups for like Practicode on there, and there's groups for inpatient coding, outpatient coding, dermatology coding, breast cancer coding anything that you could possibly think of. There's got to be a group on there for it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think one of the easy ways to kind of start getting your name out there and boosting some of your awareness on LinkedIn is to just kind of engage Like you don't have to be a content creator, you can just be like oh, the AAPC just posted something that they're having a free webinar. Let me repost this and go. Hey, everyone you know there's that webinar coming up. Like, check it out.

Speaker 1:

That's a great way to do it. You don't have to be a content creator at all. I would say please be respectful when you are on there. You know I don't agree with everything that I see on LinkedIn or Facebook. You're not going to see me engaging with people and fighting with them. I'm like you know whatever. I'm just here to learn about the OIG, so I felt it, I whatever. But you know, be, of course, be polite, be careful with what you post. Do not post your whole resume on LinkedIn. That's another one. Because when you post your entire resume on LinkedIn, that's another one. Because when you post your entire resume on LinkedIn, the whole world can see it and that's got your email and your phone number and your AAPC information on there. Even if nobody can steal your AAPC number, they can still steal your financial identity. So because a lot of the times, let's face it, we're using some of that stuff for our passwords, right yeah?

Speaker 2:

And I've heard that one of the things that's kind of falling off that you don't need as much on resumes is people used to list their street address and you don't really need that anymore. People really just want to know maybe your city and state. I don't even use my real city and state.

Speaker 1:

Oh, okay, I do use my real state, just because that's for tax purposes, but I do not use my real city. I actually use the larger city next to me. Oh, that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

It's a small protection that makes me feel a little bit better, yeah, so yeah, and I liked you talking about making sure that you're using an appropriate photo, because every now and then you know it's fine if it's a picture of you hiking or something like that, because that's a hobby. It's another thing if you're like like drunk at the Christmas party, holding a big old drink in your hand red cheeks.

Speaker 1:

There's like the boosty pictures with the cowboy hats. Just save that for Facebook, Instagram, but not LinkedIn. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So you're known for your positive outlook. Your slogan is caffeinate, educate, dominate. What do you do to stay motivated, and especially when you're helping out clients who are probably at a very discouraged state where they're not able to find jobs?

Speaker 1:

Some of them are discouraged. You know they may have been putting in applications over and over and over. And then when I see the resume, I'm like, okay, I see the problem here. I talk to them without being condemning, but I'm also pretty firm about this is why you're not getting calls back. This is what I'm going to fix on your resume. I also tell them that I can't guarantee a job. That is one thing. Okay, so for all of you people who are out there looking at other resume uh, by the way, that's fine, you know you. You go with where you want to go and that's fine. This is a big table. There's plenty of room for all of us to eat here, but anyway.

Speaker 1:

So if somebody promises you a job, it's probably a scam. Please be careful about that. And I know when you're desperate. And you've got a mortgage and you've got kids to feed and, look, it's getting to be school time, so you've got school supplies to buy. Christmas is literally next week, right, right, it feels like it. So you may be all. Oh my gosh, this person's promising me something. I'm going to do it, and I hate seeing so many scams, and desperation sometimes makes you fall for things that you normally wouldn't, but I am a positive person. I will tell them look, I can't promise you a job, but what I can promise you is that, by the time I'm done with your resume, that you're going to have a document that you love that you're going to be able to send out at a moment's notice the second you find something that you like and that you have a better chance than you had before.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think sometimes you have to be walk that fine line between, like I, even when I do promotions for companies that train in medical coding, I'm very careful to not say this will find you a job, versus saying this will prepare you for a job, this will make you job ready, but I can't guarantee you a job.

Speaker 1:

There's no guarantee. Look, I mean I, you know, I have 10 years of experience in this field, I have six credentials, I have spoken to all 50 states. I have I've, I've done a lot of things. I still can't. Sometimes, if I wanted to, I would. I might get turned down for a job, um, and it doesn't have anything to do with how bad or good of a coder I am. It just could be that, you know they, they decided to take the first 500, um applicants and just decided to leave the rest rest, and that had nothing to do with me or anything else. So you know, sometimes luck's just not in your favor.

Speaker 2:

And I'm hearing more and more lately and maybe this is just conspiracy theories that certain companies are posting jobs but then not actually filling them for various reasons, you know for data collection.

Speaker 1:

I've heard that too. I don't know how true that is, to be honest with you, and I don't understand the reasoning behind it. That just seems like more work for no reason. So I don't know how true that is. I think sometimes people say that to make themselves feel better about not getting a job. But if I'm wrong, I'm sure somebody will say something on the channel and let me know how wrong I am.

Speaker 2:

Looking forward to it. So what is next for caffeinated coder creations?

Speaker 1:

So what is next for me? Honestly, right now I am trying to finish booking out for the rest of this year. Okay, I am going to be speaking tomorrow at the HealthCon regionals. I'm excited about it. I have a new presentation called called vaping the next epidemic. So, um, as far as the business is concerned, though, I'm actually hoping to become a certified resume writer. Okay, so, uh, just another certification to add to my list. Um, and I'm also looking at um, e&m.

Speaker 1:

Shockingly enough, looking at doing E&M, I have signed up for an E&M class. I've signed up for the E&M exam and I was actually watching your video because I have not taken an exam with the at a measure learning center. Yeah, so I haven't done that yet. So I'm looking forward to having an experience with that as well, and, you know, I just want to just keep growing and helping people and being there for people. You know you're saying my tagline.

Speaker 1:

You know caffeinate, educate and dominate. You know caffeine is basically the building block of my life. I drink way too much of it, and, in fact, right after we're done, I'm probably going to go get another cup of coffee. And educate for me was really important, because that's something that cannot be taken away from us. You know, if I go, I'm going to be doing this E&M class and I may not even need it for work. In fact, there's a good chance I won't need it for work because I work in risk adjustment.

Speaker 1:

There is no E&M, but I love the idea of learning something new and whether or not I ever apply it to a job, I'm not really super worried about that, because I just like to learn things and expand my knowledge and, who knows, maybe I'll help somebody else with something that they were struggling with. And then dominate, because why not? I would say that I'm probably not the most aggressive person. I can be assertive, but not really aggressive. But dominate just means that I'm doing the very best that I can, to the best of my abilities, and I'm not trying to knock anybody else off of their pedestal, but I've got my pedestal right here and I'm going to do the best with it.

Speaker 2:

That I can. I love that, so where can my viewers find you on the internet?

Speaker 1:

So I actually don't have a website yet. That should be the next thing that I. That should be. Yeah, there you go. So I didn't do a website just because, I have to say, when I first started the business thought to myself, this is never going to last, because I mean, if you look at the statistics on businesses, most of them fail. So I hate to say it, I didn't want to put money into a website just for it to crash and die on me in three months. I don't want to say I was pessimistic about it, but I do think I was being realistic and the business just grew and grew, and grew.

Speaker 2:

And that's admirable, because I have seen some people that they just they're like well, let's just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks, and then whatever they don't immediately make money on, they're like okay, let me go on to the next thing yeah, no, I feel like I was really doing this.

Speaker 1:

I have not changed a whole lot about my, my business, since I started. I haven't changed the prices. Um, I have actually taken a few things away just because I was like, well, nobody really seems to need this service. It's been two years. I've had one person order it, probably not going to need this, so we'll just move that aside. But you know, I've tried to stay consistent and now that it's been two years since I've owned a business, I'm like, ok, I really feel like now I can get a website, you know, and so I think that's probably the next thing. For sure, sounds good. Yeah, so they can find you on, I think, facebook, right, right, I'm on Facebook. It's Caffeinated Career Creations, a resume service by Sarah Reagan, and you can also find me on LinkedIn, but I don't have a career page on LinkedIn. I just was like, oh, two more pages, I just can't do it.

Speaker 2:

I can't do it. I have one and I never post on it. I always post on my personal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so, and I hate to say it, it's like I think people know me well enough that they know.

Speaker 2:

So I'm like it's just fine, I can only do so much as one person.

Speaker 1:

I mean you are essentially the business. So Kind of, yeah, kind of, so that's an easy. Those are really the two best ways to find me is on my Facebook page and on LinkedIn, but maybe by the end of this year maybe there will be a website. You never know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that would be great. Well, thank you so much for coming on the channel and chatting with us today, Sarah.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. It was fun and I got to finally meet you. I was so excited. Thank you everyone.

Speaker 2:

Bye everyone.