Success Stories
Pepper Smelser finds second career in medical records—Story by Chris Cunningham
After Pepper Smelser received her lay off notice in 2008, she knew she needed to return to school to develop new job skills. Although she had refined her planning and organizational skills during 28 years as a “traffic” manager at a Northwest television station—ensuring that programming ran on time and was continuous, whether a TV program, a commercial or a public service announcement—she says the saturated broadcasting market offered few job possibilities.
Now, two years later, Smelser has a full-time position with benefits in the medical records department at PeaceHealth.
Smelser, 57, says she qualified for the position thanks to Lane Community College’s Health Records Technology curriculum and the on-campus Workforce Network, a program designed to help displaced workers choose new careers and obtain training.
According to a State of the Workforce Report 2010, by the Lane Workforce Partnership, employment in the health care sector is projected to grow 23 percent between 2008 and 2018 in Lane County and add 3,900 jobs, more than any other industry.
In her new position, Smelser handles confidential patient “release of information” forms, which grant permission to specified physicians, other healthy care professionals and sometimes family members, to receive medical information. In another facet of her work, Smelser performs document imaging of the medical paperwork. It gets scanned and indexed into the patient's electronic medical record.
Although she is still a novice in her profession, Smelser says her coursework in medical terminology, medical transcription, and medical office assistance, and an internship at Peace Health, gave her a definite edge for obtaining employment in the health care industry. The internship in the medical records department “gives the student exposure to what actually goes on in the workplace,” Smelser says.
Smelser says she benefited from study groups with other HRT students, most of whom were in her age group and also preparing for another line of employment.
“I don’t know where I would be without them,” she says of the five women in her study group, three of them now employed. Like Smelser, they took advantage of Lane’s Co-operative Education internship program at Peace Health.
