Shannon: Healthcare is all I've ever done-with the exception of a 6-month window in my life. I wanted to be a candy striper, and as soon as I could wear that red and white striped American Red Cross apron, little pinafore dress, I did. I worked in nursing homes. I worked in hospitals. I did everything that I could.

My first job was being a liaison in the emergency room, setting up suture trays and making sure patients were okay. And then I was a pharmacy tech helping the pharmacist count out pills, because back then, you could do that as an 18-year-old.

[Later on] when I moved to Knoxville, TN, I was lucky enough to get a job at Knoxville Anesthesia Group learning anesthesia. And while I was there, I took and passed my CPC [Certified Professional Coder] exam, and I did that completely with self-prep and just hitting the books.

Shannon: Go back to school and expand some of the education that you don't think you'll need. One thing that we don't think about as we expand as coders and auditors [is that] we're going to need a lot of business understanding of general business concepts. If you work in large health systems, you do need it-understanding how general business practices play into the overall dynamics of how billing and coding impact the overall structure working with large to mid-sized practices and especially the smaller-size practices.

And then, how it applies to me specifically within our company running NAMAS and then being a partner within DoctorsManagement, I have no formal business training. Luckily enough, I'm surrounded by very patient partners who have helped me through on-the-job training; that is one of the things I have loved about coding, auditing, and consulting. So much of what we learn in our industry, everyone is willing to say, "Come on, let's do this audit together. Let's go and teach somebody and learn." That is what [DoctorsManagement and NAMAS] are here for. We're here to empower and support people. 

As a woman and as a mother, I've given myself a lot of grief for being an absentee mother. There have been many years when I've been on the road every week. I've missed birthdays. I've missed football games. I've missed a lot, but I provided for my children. And I'm paying [for] three kids in college right now. We all make choices in life, whether they're choices that will impact our professional trajectory or choices that will impact our personal lives. And what it comes down to is making the decisions at that time that you believe are the best for you and your family.

Shannon: Had any of them had audit-specific education and training, maybe I would have cowered, but they didn't. Everything was specific to the coder, and we weren't coding. So that is what the allure was for me.

I came to work for DoctorsManagement, and the Director of Coding walked in and she's like, "Hey, we got an ophthalmology audit in, and I don't care to learn another specialty. Here you go. Figure it out." That's how I learned ophthalmology-baptism by fire. After I was at DoctorsManagement for about a year and a half, I got promoted to the director of the department, and they handed me a profit and loss (P&L) statement. I looked at the P&L statement, and I was told, "If you can make your department profitable, you get quarterly bonuses."

I started trying to figure out other streams of revenue other than sitting back waiting on leads for audits to come into the department. Then I started figuring out as I was going out to clients that no one was teaching the clients how to do their own audits. They seemed lost as to the technique. They knew how to code, but audits seemed like such a foreign language to them as opposed to coding.

That's when I came up with the idea: why don't we start teaching people how to audit? And that's how NAMAS was born. And in a lot of ways, NAMAS had a dual purpose behind it. One primary business function: let's make the P&L look better. Number two, it did have a primary vision of "There is a need"; we need to meet the educational need. There was no product I could go find and use it to teach, so we had to create it. And that's how CPMA came to be. 

Shannon: NAMAS was approached by the American Academy of Professional Coders, who said, "We've looked at all other competing audit certifications, and we think yours is the best. We like how you teach it. And we don't want to be in the teaching business. We want to remain in the certifying business. We want to test. We want to purchase the [CPMA] credential from you. But we want you to keep doing what you do best."

Shannon: When we teach, we will specifically say, "This is not published guidance, but here's this side of the rock and here's the other side of the rock. And your organization needs to have a published policy about it."  We teach gray areas. We don't tell you which side your organization should create your policy on. But we do educate both sides. We tell you the variations of what's going to happen.

The other thing is we try to be very engaging and intriguing, in a way that makes an hour webinar seem like, "Wow, that's all?! It's over already?!"

Shannon: We've never done a call for speakers, because we cherry-pick. We only pick speakers that we know meet the caliber and the quality. Those we know will go to the gray areas.

Shannon: We create a conference that even you and I, as seasoned auditors, consultants, and people who attend so many conferences a year would enjoy, and as speakers that even we would want to hear. And we do eat well at our events. I think we try to create the utmost experience. And the other thing is, who doesn't want to go to a resort-type atmosphere? Because I think the Wyndham does give you that resort-type atmosphere, and it's on the beach front. 

Shannon: With NAMAS, I try so hard for us to make sure we are giving you the best value financially. So, when you come to us for education, for membership, for a conference, we are going to honor you for giving your time and your money to us for education. We are going to return that investment of your time and your financial investment by giving you the best we can.

What's to come in the future with NAMAS? I have two new certifications that I am desperate to roll out-it's timing. One of them has an outline built; I just have to sit down and get the curriculum built. 

As far as me personally, I will say I have a lot to figure out, because selling the CPMA and making that deal with the AAPC was a hard plateau to hit so young in your career. It's a lot to figure out and move forward. So, we'll see what's left to come.