[Weallmustbecrazy]

Hello fellow ninjas!

So I am one exam away from passing all CPA exams and then I will have enough work experience in August to become licensed. I am currently working in public accounting with a Big 4 and to be quite frank, I absolutely hate it.

I always did well at accounting in school but I have spent the last year hating everyday of my job. The culture is very cut throat but that isn’t even the issue. I don’t mind competition and I don’t mind working hard nor do I mind the hours. I just can’t stand what I do and its hard for me to work hard for something I couldn’t care less about. I would rather milk cows than audit another workpaper.

I love business, numbers, and management but I also want to do something where I am not just staring at excel for 50 hours a week. I have heard alot about healthcare admin and I would like to pursue that (since I now know that public accounting is not for me). I have always loved healthcare but didn’t want to go the med school route and did not want to be a nurse. I feel that healthcare admin would be a great mixture of both!

Any advice? Will a CPA help me at all when trying to get my foot in the door? Is it best to go back to grad school? Am I making a mistake by jumping ship?

Thanks!

FAR:82
BEC:75
REG:77
AUD:89

[Anonymous]

Have you tried reaching out to your mentor or partners directly expressing that you'd like to do something different? (I'm a senior at a Big4 in the advisory practice)

The Big4 has a lot of opportunities within it. I'd look there first before looking outside your respective firm.

[Anonymous]

Have you tried reaching out to your mentor or partners directly expressing that you'd like to do something different? (I'm a senior at a Big4 in the advisory practice)

The Big4 has a lot of opportunities within it. I'd look there first before looking outside your respective firm.

[Anonymous]

There are some cpa firms that specialize in the healthcare industry, you could see if your firm has any healthcare clients that you could work with

I am a controller for a medical laboratory and I love it. I have never worked in public so I don't know how it would be “jumping ship” but I can say that I really enjoy working in the healthcare industry, with the exception of the frustration of constant changes by CMS and third party payers.

Having a CPA may help if you are interested in eventually becoming a controller or CFO. If you decide to go to grad school you should concentrate on a masters in healthcare administration.

[Anonymous]

There are some cpa firms that specialize in the healthcare industry, you could see if your firm has any healthcare clients that you could work with

I am a controller for a medical laboratory and I love it. I have never worked in public so I don't know how it would be “jumping ship” but I can say that I really enjoy working in the healthcare industry, with the exception of the frustration of constant changes by CMS and third party payers.

Having a CPA may help if you are interested in eventually becoming a controller or CFO. If you decide to go to grad school you should concentrate on a masters in healthcare administration.

[klink24]

@bnrhilton, I know exactly how you feel!! I work at a national laboratory provider and we battle CMS changes all the time. What do you think about PECOS?!?! At least they delayed ICD-10, right?! Of course we're still working as if it's still coming. I'm a manager in our Billing Operations department and would love to get into straight up accounting, eventually becoming Controller or something similar. Would like to ultimately be in executive management, maybe even CFO. Only thing is, turnover in the accounting department is so rare! I never see positions available on our website. Makes me wonder if they have their own recruiting process outside of corporate. Haven't had the courage to speak up to my boss about my ambitions and get more information, but will soon.

FAR: 4/19/2014 - 85!
AUD: 5/27/2014 - 90!
REG: 7/18/2014 - 81!
BEC: 8/13/2014 - 84!

4 up, 4 down, in 4 months.

Licensed 9/22 in NC.

[klink24]

@bnrhilton, I know exactly how you feel!! I work at a national laboratory provider and we battle CMS changes all the time. What do you think about PECOS?!?! At least they delayed ICD-10, right?! Of course we're still working as if it's still coming. I'm a manager in our Billing Operations department and would love to get into straight up accounting, eventually becoming Controller or something similar. Would like to ultimately be in executive management, maybe even CFO. Only thing is, turnover in the accounting department is so rare! I never see positions available on our website. Makes me wonder if they have their own recruiting process outside of corporate. Haven't had the courage to speak up to my boss about my ambitions and get more information, but will soon.

FAR: 4/19/2014 - 85!
AUD: 5/27/2014 - 90!
REG: 7/18/2014 - 81!
BEC: 8/13/2014 - 84!

4 up, 4 down, in 4 months.

Licensed 9/22 in NC.

[nicole2035]

I work for a healthcare company and i deal with managers and admins all the time, almost all of them, i'd say 70% have some kind of background in the accounting process. Lots used to work in the AR or AP of healthcare companies, many have accounting degrees, etc it definitely helps. Oddly enough i think it's because you know more the value of things, and you're able to make more objective decisions between $ and real life situations. Accountants when we don't have a good grasp on what we're ‘accounting' for we start only thinking in numbers and forget they're related to real events. So when you can take an accountant out of that and i feel put them in the real setting, they definitely flourish. So many costs associated with being in the healthcare industry, and admins have to know about financials to truly be successful.

[nicole2035]

I work for a healthcare company and i deal with managers and admins all the time, almost all of them, i'd say 70% have some kind of background in the accounting process. Lots used to work in the AR or AP of healthcare companies, many have accounting degrees, etc it definitely helps. Oddly enough i think it's because you know more the value of things, and you're able to make more objective decisions between $ and real life situations. Accountants when we don't have a good grasp on what we're ‘accounting' for we start only thinking in numbers and forget they're related to real events. So when you can take an accountant out of that and i feel put them in the real setting, they definitely flourish. So many costs associated with being in the healthcare industry, and admins have to know about financials to truly be successful.

[Anonymous]

@nclynch, PECOS is slowly becoming a royal pain. I just created a letter to send to all our clients who we are getting denials on and I am having our sales person go educate them about how to get registered and/or make sure their info is correct with cms. I was over Accounting and HR and took over the billing department a couple years ago (without any healthcare billing experience) so sometimes I feel like I am barely holding my head above water trying to figure it all out, lol. I work for a regional anatomical pathology and clinical lab, very family oriented and I absolutely love it here.

The other thing that drives me nuts is when cms makes a change and then all the other payers decide not to follow cms guidelines and then we have to code each payer differently in how they are billed. (IHC stains is the newest one for us)

[Anonymous]

@nclynch, PECOS is slowly becoming a royal pain. I just created a letter to send to all our clients who we are getting denials on and I am having our sales person go educate them about how to get registered and/or make sure their info is correct with cms. I was over Accounting and HR and took over the billing department a couple years ago (without any healthcare billing experience) so sometimes I feel like I am barely holding my head above water trying to figure it all out, lol. I work for a regional anatomical pathology and clinical lab, very family oriented and I absolutely love it here.

The other thing that drives me nuts is when cms makes a change and then all the other payers decide not to follow cms guidelines and then we have to code each payer differently in how they are billed. (IHC stains is the newest one for us)

[klink24]

@bnrhilton, I offer this advice free of charge. Make sure you check the NPI numbers of the providers sending you work against the PECOS Excel file posted on the CMS website. When they show up, all you have to do is re-bill and you'll get paid (barring any other issues unrelated to PECOS). No complicated appeal necessary. Check for name mismatches as well. CMS edits on 1st 4 characters of last name and first initial of first name so you just need to make sure those characters match. If they don't but the NPI is in PECOS, update the name and re-bill. Outside of that, there's not much you can do other than educate. CMS has said penalizing the client is acceptable, but that's not advisable unless their P&L is unfavorable.

You may already know all of this, but figured I'd impart my experience. I've been monitoring and analyzing the potential PECOS impact for my company since 2009. They were sending warnings prior to turning on the edit.

FAR: 4/19/2014 - 85!
AUD: 5/27/2014 - 90!
REG: 7/18/2014 - 81!
BEC: 8/13/2014 - 84!

4 up, 4 down, in 4 months.

Licensed 9/22 in NC.

[klink24]

@bnrhilton, I offer this advice free of charge. Make sure you check the NPI numbers of the providers sending you work against the PECOS Excel file posted on the CMS website. When they show up, all you have to do is re-bill and you'll get paid (barring any other issues unrelated to PECOS). No complicated appeal necessary. Check for name mismatches as well. CMS edits on 1st 4 characters of last name and first initial of first name so you just need to make sure those characters match. If they don't but the NPI is in PECOS, update the name and re-bill. Outside of that, there's not much you can do other than educate. CMS has said penalizing the client is acceptable, but that's not advisable unless their P&L is unfavorable.

You may already know all of this, but figured I'd impart my experience. I've been monitoring and analyzing the potential PECOS impact for my company since 2009. They were sending warnings prior to turning on the edit.

FAR: 4/19/2014 - 85!
AUD: 5/27/2014 - 90!
REG: 7/18/2014 - 81!
BEC: 8/13/2014 - 84!

4 up, 4 down, in 4 months.

Licensed 9/22 in NC.

[Anonymous]

@nclynch, thank you for the advice. as a result of being over 3 departments sometimes my head is “buried in the sand” so to speak because there is so much to keep up with and I didn't find out about the PECOS informational edits until the end of 2013. Not much time to get any changes in place prior to the edits being turned on. However I think we have it somewhat under control now.

[Anonymous]

@nclynch, thank you for the advice. as a result of being over 3 departments sometimes my head is “buried in the sand” so to speak because there is so much to keep up with and I didn't find out about the PECOS informational edits until the end of 2013. Not much time to get any changes in place prior to the edits being turned on. However I think we have it somewhat under control now.

[Author]

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