In today’s fast-paced healthcare environment, efficiency and accuracy are non-negotiable. Every medical practice, hospital, and healthcare system strives to optimize revenue, ensure compliance, and deliver exceptional patient care. One area that often flies under the radar but carries significant implications is medical coding. Many organizations assume that having physicians perform their own medical coding is a cost-saving measure—a “free” solution that leverages existing staff. However, this assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. Relying on doctors to handle medical coding comes with hidden costs that can jeopardize your practice’s financial health, compliance standing, and operational efficiency.
At The Coding Network, we’ve spent over three decades helping healthcare providers navigate the complexities of medical coding with specialty specific precision and expertise. In this article, we’ll uncover why assigning coding responsibilities to physicians is far from free, explore the tangible and intangible costs, and explain why outsourcing to professional medical coders is a smarter, more cost-effective solution.
The Myth of “Free” Physician Coding
On the surface, it might seem logical to have doctors handle their own coding. After all, they’re the ones performing the procedures and documenting patient encounters—shouldn’t they be able to assign the appropriate CPT, ICD-10, and HCPCS codes? While physicians are undoubtedly experts in their clinical domains, medical coding is a specialized skill that requires a different kind of expertise. Assuming that doctors can seamlessly integrate coding into their workflow overlooks the real costs involved—costs that extend far beyond the price of hiring a professional coder.
Here’s why relying on physicians to code is not the free solution it appears to be.
1. Lost Productivity: Time Is Money
Physicians are the revenue engines of any healthcare practice. Their time is best spent diagnosing patients, performing procedures, and developing treatment plans—not wrestling with codebooks or navigating the latest coding updates. Yet, when doctors are tasked with coding, that’s exactly what happens.
2. The Time Drain of Coding
Medical coding isn’t a quick checkbox exercise. It involves reviewing documentation, selecting the correct procedural and diagnostic codes, ensuring compliance with payer requirements, and staying current with ever-changing regulations. For a busy physician, this takes valuable time that quickly compounds across a full day of appointments.
The Opportunity Cost
What could your physicians accomplish with those extra hours? More patient visits, additional procedures, or even a moment to recharge between appointments. Every minute spent coding is a minute not spent generating revenue or having a life out of the office. Suddenly, “free” coding starts to look incredibly expensive.
3. Coding Errors: The Silent Revenue Killer
Medical schools, internship, residency, and fellowship programs devote little – if any – time on educating doctors on the intricacies of coding. Physicians are trained to heal, not to code. While they may have a general understanding of medical coding, they lack the specialized training and experience of certified coders. This gap in expertise often leads to errors—errors that can cost your practice dearly. We have found that very few medical schools provide training in coding to their graduates. Thus when physicians start working at healthcare organizations, they ultimately need additional education to function properly. For example, E&M services often require the use of modifiers in treating patients; however, this is not taught in medical school so physicians do not understand how to properly apply them to cases.
4. Under-Coding: Leaving Money on the Table
One common mistake is under-coding, where physicians assign lower-level codes than the documentation supports. This might stem from caution (to avoid audits) or simply a lack of familiarity with coding nuances. For instance, a physician might code a complex office visit as a Level 3 (99213) when it qualifies as a Level 4 (99214), resulting in a reimbursement loss of $30-$50 per encounter. Multiply that across hundreds of visits, and the financial impact becomes staggering.
5. Overcoding: Inviting Audits and Penalties
On the flip side, overcoding—assigning higher-level codes than warranted, or unbundling consolidated codes—can trigger payer audits, recoupments, and even fines. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the CMS Office of Inspector General (OIG) can recoup overpayments going back over seven years, and have ramped up scrutiny on coding accuracy, with initiatives like the Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program (launched August 1, 2024) incentivizing the reporting of noncompliance. A single audit can cost up to millions of dollars in legal fees, repayments, fines / penalties, and lost credibility, turning “free” coding into a compliance costly nightmare. Last year alone, RAC auditors recouped a record $2.2 billion from physician groups.
6. Compliance Risks: A Constantly Evolving Set of Codes and Guidelines
Medical coding isn’t just about reimbursement; it’s about adhering to a web of federal, state, and payer regulations. From ICD-10 specificity, the multitude of frequently misunderstood or misused modifiers, to CMS billing rules, compliance is a moving target that demanding constant vigilance.
7. The Burden of Staying Current
Coding guidelines evolve annually—sometimes more frequently. In 2025 alone, updates to E/M coding, telehealth rules, and specialty-specific requirements have added layers of complexity. Expecting doctors to master these changes alongside their clinical responsibilities is unrealistic. A missed update could lead to denied claims, delayed payments, or worse—regulatory scrutiny.
8. Real-World Consequences
Consider recent examples: an Indiana health system paid $2.9 million in 2022 to settle Medicaid overbilling allegations tied to improper coding, while the DOJ alleged Kaiser Permanente defrauded Medicare of $1 billion through manipulated diagnoses. When physicians code, the risk of noncompliance skyrockets, exposing your practice to penalties that dwarf any perceived savings.
9. Lack of Scalability: A Hidden Limitation
As your practice grows—whether through new providers, expanded services, or increased patient volume—coding demands grow too. Physicians can’t scale their time indefinitely. What works for a solo practitioner coding about 20 visits charts a day falls apart in a multi-specialty group managing hundreds of doctors and other providers. In big practices or health systems with their own Coding Department, supervising it is often an act of juggling limited resources, growing workloads, quirky clerical personalities, and is usually a dead-end career path.
10. The Bottleneck Effect
When doctors code, they can become a bottleneck in the revenue cycle . Backlogs pile up during busy seasons, vacations, or unexpected absences, delaying claims and disrupting cash flow. Professional medical coding assistance, like that offered by The Coding Network, provides scalable support on a per-encounter or per-operation basis, with no minimum volume requirements—whether you need temporary coverage or ongoing expertise.
11. Specialty-Specific Challenges
Specialties like cardiology, orthopedics, or oncology involve intricate coding rules that even seasoned physicians struggle to master. Our team of over 800 U.S.-based coders, each with at least three years of specialty-specific experience and who has passed one of our 57 different specialty-specific proficiency tests, ensures accuracy no matter the complexity.
12. Certification Does Not Guarantee Accuracy
To become certified, that person needs no educational or medical experience and must take a 24 hour course that covers everything from otolaryngology to podiatry (“nose to toes”) and pass a test with a grade of 70%. They clearly know a little about a lot of clinical specialties versus a lot about just one.
The Solution: Outsourcing Medical Coding
If physician coding isn’t free—or even cost-effective—what’s the alternative? Outsourcing to professional medical coders offers a proven way to reclaim revenue, reduce risk, and free your doctors to do what they do best.
Precision and Expertise
Certified coders bring a level of accuracy that physicians can’t match. Our network of coders not only possess the requisite background in specialty coding but also demonstrate their skills via proffiency screening on tertiary cases and ongoing Q/A.This expertise translates to fewer denials, faster reimbursements, and optimized revenue.
Cost Efficiency
Outsourcing eliminates the need for in-house coding staff, benefits, and training costs. With no minimums or exclusivity requirements, you pay only for the coding you need—whether it’s daily support, coding for a specific specialty, backlog relief, or vacation coverage. Compared to the very high annual cost of physician coding time, outsourcing is a fraction of the price.
Compliance Assurance
The coders stay ahead of regulatory changes, protecting your practice from audits and penalties. With all work performed in the U.S. (no offshore risks), you gain peace of mind knowing your coding meets the highest standards.
Flexibility and Freedom
Outsourcing lets your physicians focus on patient care while we handle the administrative burden. Need a coding audit? Documentation training? A helpline for tough cases? Weekend or vacation coverage? We’ve got you covered, remotely and seamlessly.
Why The Coding Network?
Since 1995, The Coding Network has been the gold standard in connecting healthcare professionals with medical coding assistance they need and deserve. Founded by healthcare management experts Neal Green and Mark Babst, we’ve built a reputation for accuracy, reliability, and results. Here’s what sets us apart:
- Specialty-Driven Expertise: Over 800 coders, each with at least three years of single-specialty experience.
- U.S.-Based Excellence: No offshore coding—ever.
- Tertiary Care Expertise: No other company approaches our experience at academic faculty practice plans and teaching hospitals over the last 30 years.
- Administrative Burden Reduction: No longer do you have to focus on coders accuracy, turnaround-time, and their relationships with your physicians .
- USA Based: All TCN coders and auditors live and work in the United States. TCN has no outsourcing agreements with any off-shore companies or contractors so there is no risk that work ends up overseas unbeknownst to providers and health systems alike.
- Pristine Compliance Record: Even with extensive experience at academic practices (which are targets of high value for the OIG) NEVER has a client had to pay a penny for fines or penalties for any service coded by TCN’s network of coders.
Take Action: Stop Paying the Hidden Costs
Relying on physicians to code isn’t free—it’s a costly gamble that undermines your practice’s success. Lost productivity, coding errors, compliance risks, burnout, and scalability limits add up fast, draining resources and morale. Professional medical coding assistance isn’t just a luxury; it’s a necessity for thriving in today’s healthcare landscape. Ready to ditch the myth of “free” coding? Contact The Coding Network today to learn how our expert coders can optimize your revenue, minimize risk, and let your doctors focus on what matters most—your patients.
