Top 12 Health Information Technician Skills to Put on Your Resume
In today's rapidly evolving healthcare sector, Health Information Technicians sit at the nerve center of patient data—accuracy, access, and protection all threaded through their daily work. A sharp skill set lifts your resume and your impact, signaling you can navigate the tangled, shifting world of health information management without losing the plot.
Health Information Technician Skills
- ICD-10 Coding
- CPT Coding
- EHR Systems
- HIPAA Compliance
- Medical Terminology
- Data Analysis
- Health Informatics
- Database Management
- Epic Software
- Meditech Software
- Quality Assurance
- Information Security
1. ICD-10 Coding
ICD-10 (including ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS) is the standardized system used to classify diagnoses, symptoms, and inpatient procedures. It powers consistent documentation, clean analytics, and comparable reporting across organizations and countries.
Why It's Important
It underpins accurate records, appropriate reimbursement, population health tracking, and research. If the code is wrong, everything downstream wobbles.
How to Improve ICD-10 Coding Skills
Blend study with repetition and feedback.
Continual education: Track annual updates (typically each October). Review official guidelines and coding clinic guidance regularly.
Deliberate practice: Work through varied case scenarios. Time yourself. Then audit your own work.
Use trusted tools: Keep an ICD-10-CM/PCS browser, encoder, and up-to-date manuals within reach.
Peer discussion: Talk through tricky cases with experienced coders; capture decisions in a shared tip file.
Audit loop: Compare your codes with audit results; build a personal error list and squash repeat mistakes.
Small, steady upgrades compound. Accuracy first, speed follows.
How to Display ICD-10 Coding Skills on Your Resume
2. CPT Coding
CPT (Current Procedural Terminology) standardizes how procedures and services are described for billing and documentation. Outpatient, professional services, the whole daily grind—this is the language.
Why It's Important
Clear CPT coding keeps claims clean, reduces denials, and aligns providers, payers, and auditors around the same definitions.
How to Improve CPT Coding Skills
Stay current: Track annual CPT changes and payer policy updates; watch for bundling edits and modifier nuances.
Practice with edge cases: Evaluation and management, modifiers, minor vs. major procedures—go deep where denials often cluster.
Use encoders and scrubbers: Modern tools surface edits and common errors before claims go out.
Do peer reviews: Quick second looks catch missed modifiers and bundling issues.
Close the loop with denials: Analyze denial trends and bake lessons into quick-reference guides.
How to Display CPT Coding Skills on Your Resume
3. EHR Systems
Electronic Health Record systems store and move patient data—histories, meds, orders, notes, lab results—so clinicians and staff can act quickly and consistently.
Why It's Important
Better data in, better care out. EHRs cut friction, expose patterns, and tie teams together when configured well.
How to Improve EHR Systems Skills
Simplify workflows: Map real tasks, remove clicks, tame alerts. Templates and smart phrases should help, not hinder.
Boost interoperability: Use standard vocabularies and exchange formats. Reconcile external data cleanly to avoid duplicates.
Harden privacy and security: Role-based access, audit logs, encryption, and tight provisioning. Review access regularly.
Train continuously: Short, focused refreshers after updates. Tip sheets for common tasks. Office hours for questions.
Leverage analytics: Build dashboards for quality metrics, denials, turnaround times. Let data steer improvements.
Enable patient engagement: Make portals useful—test results, visit summaries, secure messaging, clear instructions.
How to Display EHR Systems Skills on Your Resume
4. HIPAA Compliance
HIPAA compliance means safeguarding protected health information and following privacy, security, and breach notification rules from end to end.
Why It's Important
Trust and law, hand in hand. Sound compliance protects patients, reduces risk, and keeps operations steady when incidents strike.
How to Improve HIPAA Compliance Skills
Educate everyone: Regular, role-based training with realistic scenarios. Make it practical, not checkbox theater.
Assess risk annually: Use a structured security risk analysis. Track findings to closure with owners and timelines.
Refresh policies: Keep privacy, security, and breach procedures current and accessible. Test them.
Protect data: Encryption, strong authentication, least-privilege access, and secure disposal. Document controls.
Incident response: Define triage, investigation, containment, notifications, and lessons learned. Drill it.
Manage business associates: Maintain agreements, vet controls, monitor compliance.
Audit and monitor: Review access logs, unusual activity, and high-risk workflows. Follow up relentlessly.
Align with recognized guidance such as the HIPAA Security Rule implementation specifications and NIST SP 800-66 practices.
How to Display HIPAA Compliance Skills on Your Resume
5. Medical Terminology
The shared vocabulary of medicine—structures, conditions, procedures, and processes—used precisely so records say what clinicians mean.
Why It's Important
It eliminates guesswork. Clean documentation, accurate coding, faster billing, fewer errors.
How to Improve Medical Terminology Skills
Study in sprints: Short daily sessions with flashcards. Mix roots, prefixes, suffixes, and body systems.
Use it at work: Rewrite ambiguous phrases into precise terms. Validate against records.
Take structured courses: Formal refreshers cement fundamentals and updates.
Keep references handy: A current medical dictionary and coding manuals within reach.
Learn in context: Work through case studies and sample notes; practice abstracting key terms.
Seek feedback: Ask reviewers to flag unclear or incorrect terms; track and fix patterns.
Passive exposure: Podcasts or short videos during commutes reinforce retention.
How to Display Medical Terminology Skills on Your Resume
6. Data Analysis
Data analysis means turning raw health data into signals: trends, outliers, insights that guide care and operations.
Why It's Important
It sharpens decisions, exposes waste, and supports compliance. Numbers that actually move practice.
How to Improve Data Analysis Skills
Build statistical basics: Distributions, confidence intervals, regression, and epidemiology essentials.
Use the tools: EHR reporting, Excel or spreadsheets, visualization tools, and basic SQL.
Automate repeat work: Simple scripts or repeatable queries reduce errors and delays.
Tell the story: Clear visuals, tight summaries, and action-oriented recommendations.
Mind privacy: Apply de-identification, minimum necessary, and secure data handling every time.
Learn continuously: Short courses, journal summaries, and project-based practice on real datasets.
How to Display Data Analysis Skills on Your Resume
7. Health Informatics
Health informatics blends clinical knowledge, information science, and data standards to move the right information to the right person at the right time.
Why It's Important
It anchors accurate EHRs, interoperability, decision support, and quality programs. Less chaos, more clarity.
How to Improve Health Informatics Skills
Raise data quality: Standardized vocabularies, validation rules, routine data cleanup, and strong metadata.
Push interoperability: Champion standard exchange formats and consistent identifiers. Reduce manual reconciliation.
Keep learning: Track regulatory changes, standards updates, and workflow best practices.
Secure the stack: Bake security and privacy into design and daily operations. Document controls.
How to Display Health Informatics Skills on Your Resume
8. Database Management
Database management covers organizing, storing, securing, and retrieving health information in digital systems with accuracy and control.
Why It's Important
Reliable data access, regulatory compliance, and patient privacy all rest on well-run databases.
How to Improve Database Management Skills
Govern the data: Clear ownership, access rules, and data lifecycle policies. Enforce them.
Train and document: Role-based training and living runbooks for common tasks and incidents.
Back up smartly: Use the 3-2-1 rule (three copies, two media, one offsite). Test restores, not just backups.
Modernize where needed: Employ DBMS features like encryption at rest, row-level security, and auditing.
Audit routinely: Integrity checks, permission reviews, and vulnerability scans with remediation follow-through.
Engage the community: Share lessons and patterns with peers to avoid reinventing fixes.
How to Display Database Management Skills on Your Resume
9. Epic Software
Epic is a comprehensive EHR used across large health systems. It includes clinical documentation, orders, revenue cycle, reporting, and patient engagement tools.
Why It's Important
For Health Information Technicians, Epic centralizes documentation and coding workflows, supports interoperability, and streamlines audits and data pulls.
How to Improve Epic Software Skills
Tailor workflows: Use SmartTools, templates, and preference lists to reduce clicks and standardize documentation.
Know the build: Understand key master files, security classes, and user roles that affect access and data quality.
Integrate smartly: Coordinate interfaces and data reconciliation to keep external information clean and usable.
Gather feedback: Create a fast feedback channel; fix friction points and share tips broadly.
Lean on reporting: Use Reporting Workbench and dashboards to track quality, denials, and throughput.
How to Display Epic Software Skills on Your Resume
10. Meditech Software
Meditech (often styled MEDITECH) is an EHR platform that supports clinical, administrative, and revenue cycle workflows across care settings.
Why It's Important
It enables consistent documentation, cohesive data flows, and compliant reporting—key ingredients for efficiency and accuracy.
How to Improve Meditech Software Skills
Streamline the interface: Clean navigation, sensible defaults, and concise templates to trim errors and time.
Strengthen interoperability: Configure standard vocabularies and exchange pathways; reconcile external data rigorously.
Train and support: Ongoing, role-specific training with quick guides for frequent tasks and new features.
Add analytics: Build practical reports and dashboards that spotlight quality, throughput, and exceptions.
Secure by design: Enforce least privilege, monitor access, and update promptly.
How to Display Meditech Software Skills on Your Resume
11. Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance ensures health data is accurate, consistent, and secure, aligning processes with standards and regulations.
Why It's Important
Decisions hinge on data. QA protects patient safety, reimbursement, and compliance—no surprises, fewer rework loops.
How to Improve Quality Assurance Skills
Build a system that finds issues early and prevents repeats.
1. Continuous education: Keep staff current on regulations, coding changes, and system updates.
2. Standardize processes: Clear SOPs for documentation, coding, abstraction, and corrections.
3. Use technology: Employ validation rules, edit checks, and automated reconciliation where possible.
4. Audit rhythm: Routine concurrent and retrospective reviews with tight feedback loops.
5. Privacy and security: Bake compliance checks into QA so safeguards are verified, not assumed.
How to Display Quality Assurance Skills on Your Resume
12. Information Security
Information Security safeguards patient data—confidentiality, integrity, availability—across systems, people, and processes.
Why It's Important
Healthcare data is sensitive and targeted. Strong security protects patients and preserves trust.
How to Improve Information Security Skills
Educate constantly: Phishing awareness, safe handling of PHI, and secure workflows for every role.
Tighten access: Least privilege, periodic access reviews, and strong authentication (preferably MFA).
Encrypt everywhere: Data at rest and in transit. Manage keys securely.
Patch promptly: Maintain an update cadence for operating systems, applications, and devices.
Assess and audit: Regular risk assessments, vulnerability scans, and policy compliance checks with documented remediation.
Plan for incidents: A tested response plan—containment, investigation, notification, recovery, lessons learned.
Follow frameworks: Align with recognized controls (such as NIST SP 800-53) and healthcare-specific guidance.
How to Display Information Security Skills on Your Resume
