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There is no such thing as a bachelor’s degree in medical billing and coding, and you should be wary of any program marketed that way. What exists, and what experienced coders actually pursue, is a bachelor’s in health information management (HIM), sometimes titled health informatics and information management or healthcare information management, that takes the coding and reimbursement foundation and adds compliance, auditing, data governance, information systems, and management. From a CAHIIM-accredited program it leads to the Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA) credential from AHIMA, which is the degree-level credential in this field.
The reason this page exists inside a medical billing and coding guide is that the bachelor’s is the branching point in a coder’s career. Production coding, no matter how skilled, is a wage-band-limited job; the medical records specialist occupation had a 90th percentile wage of $81,150 in May 2025 (BLS OEWS), and reaching it generally means inpatient or surgical specialization plus years of experience. The roles above that ceiling, coding compliance manager, revenue integrity analyst, clinical documentation integrity lead, HIM director, are the ones that expect a bachelor’s. Health information technologists and medical registrars had a median annual wage of $68,020 and a 90th percentile of $117,420 (BLS OEWS, May 2025), and medical and health services managers had a median of $123,860 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). This page explains what the degree covers, who it is for, and how to evaluate programs.
Not as a standalone major at accredited institutions. The bachelor’s-level degree for this field is health information management, which includes coding and reimbursement but is much broader. Some healthcare administration and health sciences bachelor’s programs offer a coding or revenue cycle concentration, which is a reasonable alternative if HIM is not available to you.
The Registered Health Information Administrator is AHIMA’s bachelor’s-level credential, available to graduates of CAHIIM-accredited bachelor’s (or master’s) programs in HIM who pass the RHIA exam. It is the credential HIM directors, privacy officers, and data governance leads commonly hold, and it sits above the RHIT in the AHIMA hierarchy. Like the RHIT, it is only available through CAHIIM-accredited programs.
Not to advance within coding. Senior coder, inpatient coder, and coding auditor roles are generally reached through experience and stacked certifications (CCS on top of CPC, a CPMA or CCS-P, specialty credentials). The bachelor’s matters for the management and compliance layer: coding manager, compliance analyst, revenue integrity, CDI program lead, and HIM director. Those postings commonly list a bachelor’s as required or strongly preferred.
Usually, and many CAHIIM-accredited bachelor’s programs are designed as completion programs for RHITs. Some also award credit for the RHIT credential itself. Confirm how many of your associate credits apply to the major rather than to electives, because coding courses taken years ago may not be accepted toward the HIM core.
About 120 credits, four years full-time from scratch. Completion programs for students entering with an associate commonly require 60 or so additional credits, roughly two years full-time or three to four part-time. The professional practice experience and a capstone are typically in the final year.
For management roles in revenue cycle and patient financial services, often yes. For HIM department leadership, compliance, and anything requiring the RHIA, no. If your goal is running a billing operation, healthcare administration is a legitimate route; if your goal is the health record, its data, and its compliance, HIM is the degree.
For a full map of this program area, start here: Medical Billing and Coding Program Guide
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Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:Accreditor: Northwest Commission on Colleges and UniversitiesIPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:Accreditor: Northwest Commission on Colleges and UniversitiesIPEDSCollege Scorecard
The bachelor’s makes the most sense for three kinds of coders. The first is the experienced production coder who has hit the top of what coding pays at their employer and wants the management or compliance layer. The second is the RHIT who wants the RHIA and the department-leadership roles it unlocks. The third is the newer coder who already knows they want auditing, compliance, or clinical documentation integrity rather than a long career in production, and who wants the degree in progress while building coding experience. It is a poor fit for someone who has not yet coded and is not sure they want to be in this field; the certificate or associate is the right place to find that out.
Upper-division HIM coursework covers the regulatory environment in depth: the False Claims Act and its whistleblower provisions, the Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark law, the Office of Inspector General work plan, Recovery Audit Contractor and other payer audit programs, and how compliance programs are structured. You learn to design an audit sample, measure coding accuracy statistically, document findings in a way that holds up in a payer dispute, and educate providers on documentation. This is the content that turns a coder into a coding auditor or compliance analyst, and it pairs naturally with AAPC’s CPMA credential.
CDI programs work upstream of coding, reviewing documentation while the patient is still in the hospital and querying physicians so that the record supports the severity and complexity actually present. Bachelor’s programs cover the query process, compliant query construction, the quality measures and risk-adjustment models that depend on documentation, and the relationship between CDI and coding. Hospitals staff CDI with experienced inpatient coders and nurses; the degree plus a CDIP (AHIMA) or CCDS (ACDIS) credential is the standard package.
HIM at the bachelor’s level is increasingly a data field. Coursework covers data governance frameworks, data quality measurement, healthcare statistics and basic analytics, database concepts and SQL, interoperability standards, and the structure of clinical data in the EHR. This is the material that leads to the health information technologist and medical registrar occupation, which BLS projects to grow 14.7% from 2024 to 2034 (BLS Employment Projections), faster than the 7.1% projected for medical records specialists over the same period.
Healthcare organization and finance, human resources and supervision, project management, and strategic planning, usually with a capstone that has you solve a real operational problem. For coders moving into coding manager or HIM director roles, this is the coursework that fills the gap between being good at the work and being able to run a department that does it.
| Course Topic | What You Learn |
|---|---|
| Advanced Classification Systems | ICD-10-CM/PCS and CPT at the level of auditing and educating others, plus emerging code sets |
| Reimbursement & Revenue Cycle Management | Prospective payment systems, value-based payment, chargemaster management, and denial analytics |
| Healthcare Compliance & Coding Audit | Fraud and abuse law, audit design, accuracy measurement, and corrective action plans |
| Clinical Documentation Integrity | Query process, documentation improvement, and the link between documentation and quality metrics |
| Health Data Governance & Quality | Data stewardship, quality measurement, and data integrity across the enterprise |
| Healthcare Statistics & Analytics | Descriptive statistics, data visualization, and reporting for quality and finance |
| Health Information Systems & Informatics | EHR architecture, interoperability, database concepts, and system selection |
| Privacy, Security & Legal Aspects | HIPAA at the policy level, breach response, and the privacy officer function |
| Healthcare Management & Finance | Organization, budgeting, supervision, and project management |
| Professional Practice Experience & Capstone | Management-level placement and an applied project |
HIM bachelor’s programs usually require statistics, a computer applications course, and anatomy and physiology before the upper-division core, and many completion programs require an active RHIT or a completed CAHIIM associate for admission. The coding sequence must generally be complete before the audit and CDI courses. The professional practice experience at this level is often management-oriented, meaning a project with an HIM department rather than production coding hours, and programs commonly allow it to be completed at your current employer if you already work in the field. Confirm:
If you are moving faster than a standard plan, see accelerated medical billing and coding programs.
This is the level at which transfer planning saves the most money and time, because 120 credits is a lot of surface area. Confirm:
See affordable online medical billing and coding programs for how these policies affect total cost.
Verify institutional accreditation through the U.S. Department of Education database, and verify the specific bachelor’s program in CAHIIM’s directory if RHIA eligibility matters to you. Ask for RHIA first-attempt pass rates, which accredited programs report.
The associate is the hospital-coding credential: RHIT eligibility, inpatient coding preparation, and a degree behind your certifications. The bachelor’s is the leadership and compliance credential. Very few coding positions require a bachelor’s, so pursuing it before you have coded is usually front-loading cost against a benefit that arrives years later. The efficient sequence for most people is certificate or associate, certification, a few years of production experience, then the bachelor’s as a completion program while working, ideally with an employer that recognizes the RHIA. For a broader view of the field this degree opens up, see the health information management program guide and, for the management side, the healthcare administration program guide.
Compare degree options:
Data verified: August 25, 2026. Salary, employment, and tuition figures on this page are sourced from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS May 2025; Employment Projections 2024–2034) and the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard (2023 cohort). The source agency and data year are cited inline with every statistic.
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