Interview with Quinten A. Buechner
M.S., M.Div., C.P.C., ACS-FP/GI/PEDS
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What is your name?
Quinten Buechner
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Where are you from?
Wisconsin, born and bred for most of my life with stops off in TX, ARK and Germany courtesy of the ARMY and a year in SC.
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What is your favorite activity?
Camping and seeing National Parks and battlefields.
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Do you have any hobbies?
Grandkids, Reading and creating Roman and Medieval military figurines.
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What credentials do you hold?
M.S., M.Div., C.P.C., ACS-FP/GI/PEDS.
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What organizations do you belong to and how have they helped your career?
Lutheran Church (WELS), American Association of Professional Coders, Board of Advanced Medical Coders. AHIMA. The church, of course, guides my life through faith. The AAPC helps by existing. Without it, there is no way to establish a profession or professionalism. BOMC takes the AAPC recognition to a higher level and provides a way to help the profession by establishing even higher and independent standards. AHIMA also provides information that applies to our profession These 3 organizations provide an external standard that clients can see as a measure of my consulting expertise.
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How did you get into the field of medical billing and coding?
Started out as a lab technician and teacher in the 60’s and 70’s at the early development of I-9 and CPT, went on to be Director of Governmental Grants and Contracts as part of a major University and aided in the creation of a new Medical School in Ohio. Did full time ministry till the late 80s but had to resign to get help for our adopted son, did part time ministry and full time Appeals Coordinator at a large mutlispecialty clinic and then at a Medical College as Reimbursement Manager. Also started consulting practice then.
Spent some time as a Health care Consultant in MN and SC, then ran my own.
Practice full time.
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What is your current position?
President; ProActive Consultants, LLC.
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What is one of your accomplishments in this field that you are most proud of?
Helping in the Start up of BOMC and the opportunities the have been provided to me to help others.
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What do you find most exciting about this field?
This is difficult because there are many things that are exciting. Successfully helping clients is exciting as is the challenge to keep up with the constant changes.
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What do you find most frustrating?
There is an old saying that the negative is always the other part of what is enjoyed or loved. I enjoy hearing a pun now and then but too many groaners are a pain. So with the frustrations, if the changes had a clear logical flow and were consistent in interpretations, most of my frustrations would go away. I guess I can even live with that if folks would stop pushing for the loop holes which ends up confusing other people.
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What do you feel the future holds for this field?
I think there will be a continuing need for coders and billers. The exact things we do will change, but we will be needed.
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What would you tell someone just starting out in this field?
Be curious and do not stop at the simple answer. Use your computer and Go to the sources and spend some of non work time working through coding and reimbursement issues.
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If there was one thing you could change about this field what would it be?
Payor misuse of the coding rules. It isn’t rocket science to look up basic CPT and I-9 rules. If they spent as much time leaning the rules or hiring someone who does, they could program correctly and spend less money on audits, fixes and appeals. That would be both cost efficient and streamline overhead so the CEOs could get a legitimate raise.
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Who do you consider a mentor?
That is a hard one. I have had the opportunity to work for some very demanding bosses. That has encouraged me to be better to meet some of their expectations. That, in turn, has benefited me professionally. If no other way, then to make be know the field as well as I could. I have also had the opportunity to work with some very good folks. We learned together and we’ve learned from one another. That is informal mentoring as good as it gets.
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What is your favorite billing or coding product?
(We’re trying to link to products available on the CRN Shoppe http://www.crnshoppe.com)
Right now it is Decision Coder [a spin off from Code Correct with additional features] as I can get CPT info from all its publications, Coding Clinic, CCI, and most of the other rules that apply. Plus articles that discuss coding and billing issues. Encoder Pro and Intelicode are great also for their additional utilities.
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What is your affiliation with the CRN and how has that helped you?
CRN provides a wonderful forum for the exchange of ideas, quick help for baffling issues and simple commiseration over things only fellow coders and billers understand.