I recently was asked what the value of local chapter meetings by a newly certified member was. I was a little taken back that she did not know the core value on which AAPC was founded, which is networking.

Local chapters were key to AAPC, and they continue to be today. That is because the chapters lay the initial groundwork for networking. Besides the education provided at the local chapters, we have the opportunity to network with coders, billers, and compliance experts that work and live in our geographic area. This is so valuable, not only for potential employment opportunities, but because networking introduces us to people who have different levels of expertise in so many topics.

Within your chapter, you will meet people who are experts in practice management, HIPAA, compliance, who have experienced payer audits and have successfully challenged their results, who are experts in just about every specialty and are experts in billing and revenue cycle management. Your chapter contains people who can assist you with questions you may have in just about any area you might have. That is one of the key reasons AAPC is organized with local chapters.

Networking Changes

AAPC was founded in 1988. Back then and through most of the 1990s, networking involved face to face contact with other professionals in the business of healthcare. We developed our network via our participation in our local chapters and by attending national conferences, meeting even more people, expanding our “Rolodexes” of people and what they brought to the table. If the people we knew did not have the expertise that we were looking for and needed, there was a good chance they might know someone via their network with the expertise they could introduce to us. We enjoyed the power of synergy where the sum of the many of us was so much more than what we could do individually. And those of us who had large networks often could be heroes, finding obscure information because our contacts knew someone who knew someone who provided us with just what we needed to show our providers where it was in writing, or how they could optimize a certain situation compliantly, etc.

Then came the internet and something called “listservs” in the late 1990s. All of the sudden, our world that was constrained by face to face contacts was expanded by the world wide web and the internet superhighway. We had to be careful because there could be people that gave us incorrect answers, but because listservs are delivered to everyone’s email box, the experts were quick to correct those who offered skewed answers. All of the sudden, networks included people from all over the country and subject matter experts (SMEs) of all flavors. Those who spent the time and invest in networking found that they had a valuable network of people with such varied knowledge and experience available to them, from people who work for providers, for hospitals, for ASCs, for payers, for attorneys, for consultants and more. But networking takes time and an investment of your time and your knowledge. It is a give and take process. Networkers are continually paying it forward to others in our profession.

We Still Have AAPC

Now, in 2019, instead of listservs, we have discussion boards, LinkedIn, and Facebook where we electronically network. When you are logged into your AAPC account, click on “Networking” on the top of the screen, and you can see the options of:

• Your chapter
• Find another chapter
• Discussion Forums
• Events

We still have our AAPC Local Chapters where we continually network each month at each meeting. And not only do we have our national conference, Healthcon, but AAPC now offers Regional Conferences so that you do not necessarily have to get on an airplane to go to a conference for the educational content and for the networking experience. As wonderful as networking across the miles via electronic media is, it is much more satisfying and exciting to finally meet those that you have been “conversing” with electronically, in person when you both meet at a conference.

Build and Maintain Your Network

Besides paying it forward as well as gleaning information from your questions that you ask of your network and your network’s network, it takes administrative work to maintain your network. Here is what you have to do to build and maintain your network:

1. Always have business cards with you.
   1. If your employer does not provide you with business cards, or if you want to have contact with your personal email and cell, print your own business cards. Printing business cards can be inexpensive at places like Vistaprint.com, Staples, or Office Depot.
   2. Hand out your business card out to everyone you meet that might be a connection in your network. They might not be in the business of healthcare, but they know someone in the business of healthcare. In that case, give them your card and ask them to give your card to the person they know, describing what you do.
2. Always collect the business cards of everyone you meet
   1. Write on the business card when you get it, where you met the person, the date you met the person and what is special about that person so that you can recall their special talents and knowledge in the future
   2. Enter the person’s contact information in a contact manager like Outlook and in the comments, put the notes you put on the card, the place you met them, the date you met them and their special talents and knowledge.
   3. Your contact database will continue to grow larger and larger as you meet new people.
3. When you correspond or use information from electronic communication, add that person into your contact database.
   1. As in personal face to face contacts, indicate how you interacted with this person, on what topic and the date so that you can recall this information in the future

When using Facebook and LinkedIn you might want to take your questions to a person “offline” to a personal message, as opposed to within the discussion if you see that your comment or question will not add anything to the group and is only between you and another person.

It can be hard to put yourself out there, to speak first when you do not know someone, but remember, we are all in this together and AAPC is about networking. We want to help and increase our network, so your initiative to put yourself out there will be welcomed to the community. There is so much value to building your network, because you will soon know where to turn to find what you do not know and if your network does not know, they will know where to go and find out for you. We are AAPC!