Healthcare education authority site · Medical coding and billing
Medical coding has no state licence, no state board and no state exam anywhere in the United States, and it turns out to have no accredited programs either. We built the directory from the federal datasets and the one approval list that do exist, then published each finding on the page a reader and a citing writer would both go looking for.
Scope
The problem
Four different markers get sold to students as accreditation on a medical coding program, and only one of them reviews the program itself. Rather than describe that, we counted it. Enumerating all 431 records in the CAHIIM directory returned zero coding programs, which makes AHIMA PCAP approval, held by 22 programs across 16 states, the strongest program-level review a student can actually check.
Price was the second problem, and it was ours to fix. IPEDS keeps tuition in two mutually exclusive files carrying different units, one annual and one whole-program, and reading only the first left 345 institutions with no price. Adding the second file and then researching 78 unpriced schools against their own catalogues and gainful-employment disclosures took coverage to 97.2 percent of the credentials awarded nationally.
The third is the mistake the whole vertical makes. Coders are counted under SOC 29-2072 at a $51,140 median and billing-only roles under 43-3021 at $48,500, so quoting the coder figure on a billing page overstates the job by nearly three thousand dollars. Every career page reads its wage from its own record's SOC code, which makes that error structurally impossible rather than merely discouraged.
The linkable spine
Nobody links to a directory. They link to the page that settles an argument, so the site is built as a set of those: which certification to sit, what a program costs, what coders earn in one state, and whether the accreditation on a school's brochure means anything.
National ranking
The Top 25 is drawn from the 557 institutions that publish a tuition figure. The other 421 stay in the directory and stay out of the ranking, because a program whose price is unpublished cannot be compared on cost and an assumed number would be worse than an absent one. Every card carries its own factor breakdown, so a reader can see which of the five weights moved it.
See the national medical coding rankingState decision page
California has 109 institutions awarding a coding credential, 44 of them priced, one holding PCAP approval, and a median coder wage of $61,810. Those are the four facts that genuinely move across a state border, so they open the page. What does not move is regulation. No state licenses medical coders anywhere in the country, and each of the 50 pages says so rather than leaving a reader to wonder.
Open the California coding rankingThe finding nobody else ran
Four markers get sold to students as accreditation on a coding program and only one of them reviews the program. So both directories were enumerated. A complete read of all 431 CAHIIM records returned zero medical coding programs: the category is advertised and nothing holds it. That makes AHIMA PCAP approval, held by 22 programs across 16 states, the strongest program-level marker available, and the guide publishes the full list.
Read the accreditation guideThe citation path
Link earning starts with the person who would need the resource. The architecture makes that path explicit instead of publishing content first and hunting for a reason to promote it later.
| Primary evidence | Published resource | Who needs it |
|---|---|---|
| IPEDS completions, directory and both tuition files | 50 state rankings and the national Top 25 | Community colleges, workforce boards and career writers who need a local figure |
| The AHIMA PCAP directory, transcribed program by program | The accreditation guide and the approval flag on every card | Students, coding instructors and anyone repeating the CAHIIM claim |
| BLS OEWS May 2025, read by SOC code | Career and salary pages for coding and for billing | Employers, HR teams and journalists quoting what coders earn |
The index
Two national rankings, four reference silos and a page for every state. Each one answers a question somebody is already searching for, which is what makes it worth a citation rather than a promotion.
Scored from the 557 institutions that publish a price, with the factor breakdown on every card.
The 603 institutions offering undergraduate programs completable entirely at a distance.
Credentials, careers, pay and method.
CPC, CCA, CCS, CPB and the rest, each read from the issuing body's own page.
Ten roles, each reading its wage from its own SOC code rather than from one shared figure.
The May 2025 OEWS release, with coding and billing counted separately.
Five weighted factors, plus a section on what the model refuses to score.
The CAHIIM count and the full AHIMA PCAP list.
Penn Foster, Ashworth, MedCerts and the rest are absent from IPEDS, so they get their own page.
The four-year route out of coding, which is a health information degree rather than a coding one.
Programs, prices, approval and local coder pay, state by state.
Build
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