Billie Young sums up her typical day as a medical records clerk in three words: “busy, busy, and busy.”

On any given day, Billie pulls, sorts, adds to, takes away from, and double-checks files and records for all of the many patients who are treated at Manchester Memorial Hospital’s emergency room and outpatient care center. She also navigates the hospital’s complex coding system, ensuring patients are properly billed for the correct diagnoses.

“It’s very, very busy, but I love it,” Billie says. “Honestly, I like paperwork. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t love it.”

Billie says she is grateful for her workload, grateful for the people she works with, and grateful for the assistance she received from the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) program that allowed her to train for the career that has changed her life for the better.

Billie says the fast pace of the medical profession still excites her, even after nearly a year in her job. But as much as she enjoys her career, her decision to train for that career was made more from necessity than choice, Billie says.

An accidental injury ended her husband’s career in the coal industry and left him with monthly worker’s compensation payments that did not fully cover the family’s obligations. As their financial struggles mounted, Billie says she began thinking about entering the workforce for the first time since 1985.

“Money was really thin,” Billie says. “I wasn’t working, and I had come to a point in my life where I knew I had to do something.”

Her first move was to check for job openings in the area. Recommendations from friends led her to the Clay County JobSight workforce center, Billie says. The JobSight network is a collaborative partnership of workforce and training agencies administered by the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP), which also funds the WIA programs. The Clay County JobSight operates at the Daniel Boone Development Council in Manchester.

Billie says she went to the JobSight looking only for a job, but WIA Career Adviser JoAnn Nolan had a higher goal in mind for her.

“She told me that I needed to do better than just getting a job out here making minimum wage,” Billie says.

JoAnn encouraged Billie to pursue training for a skilled career. But Billie says she was very concerned about rediscovering and reviving her long-dormant work skills.

“You know, it had been a long time since I’d been in the workforce,” she says, “and I never did anything before like what I’m doing now.”

JoAnn quickly allayed Billie’s concerns by introducing her to the JobFit on-line job-matching service provided by EKCEP. The internet-based JobFit system matches job seekers to the precise requirements of a specific job. Job seekers create a profile by taking an on-line survey that identifies their thinking styles, behavioral patterns, interests, and skills. The job seekers’ profiles are then compared to similar profiles of an employer’s best-performing workers. A close match in all aspects of the profile greatly improves the odds that the employee will enjoy and succeed on the job.

Billie’s JobFit profile revealed that she had the attitude and aptitude to work successfully in the medical field, but that she would prefer working with a doctor or in a hospital office, rather than working one-on-one with patients. With those characteristics in mind, JoAnn helped Billie narrow her career choice down to the medical records field.

JoAnn enrolled Billie in the WIA Program, which provided funding to cover training-related travel and food expenses, as well as the majority of her tuition. Billie enrolled at the private Career Development Center in nearby London in August 2004, and she graduated with a certificate in medical coding and technology on Nov. 1 that year.

Billie did clinical work in medical records at Manchester Memorial Hospital during her training, and she says she was overjoyed when that connection led to a full-time job opportunity soon after her graduation.

“They saw that I was a very hard worker, so as soon as the position came open, they hired me,” she says.

Even on the most hectic of days, Billie still gives thanks for a career that is giving her family a solid financial footing. She credits WIA with helping turn her desire for a better life into reality.

“In my situation, the WIA gave me independence, it gave me a way to make money, and it helped my self-esteem,” Billie says. “The WIA really meant everything to me, and I couldn’t have made it where I am now without it.”