Page 44 - Stuff Made and Built in Delaware 2020

IT WORKED FOR ME
IT WORKED FOR ME
High school students and recent graduates share how they succeeded in trades without a college degree
BY ABBY OSBORNE
JOHNA FINCH
Johna Finch has generally been pretty sure of her career plans: “I’ve always wanted to be in the health care field in some form.”
Through participating in Hodgson Vocational Technical High School’s Health Information Technology (HIT) program, the newly graduated senior discovered exactly what she wanted to do.
“I realized that nursing might have been too hectic for me, and working as a front desk receptionist is more my style,” says Finch.
HIT is a class that focuses on “medical billing and coding,” with some insurance work mixed in. Finch has been a part of the class for four years. She says she's learned “how to bill and code medical procedures” as well as “how insurance works for different types of people and procedures.” (Average salaries for medical billers and coders run in the mid-$50,000s, according to AAPC, which certifies coders and billers nationwide.)
Finch prefers learning in a tactile, hands-on way, so this class prepared her for what she’d be “doing in her day- to-day job." She didn’t earn money from the program, but rather, it gave her experience should she decide to pursue the job in the future.
For any middle-school students who are considering a career in the health care field, she has a simple piece of advice: Consider what you want to do after high school.
She stresses that you have to ask yourself whether you really want to attend college, as “a lot of places in the HIT field don’t necessarily require a college education.”
But most of all, Finch emphasizes that what really matters is whether you truly enjoy the work you’re doing.
“Just make sure you’re comfortable with this field, and you actually like it.”
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