Sheila Bowling has a lot on her mind. Twenty employees work under her supervision. On any given day, she tracks hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills belonging to scores of patients of nine outpatient clinics that serve southwestern West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky. From start to finish, she is charged with making sure those bills are paid in full.

Sheila’s job as billing manager for the Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) Outreach Clinics carries a great deal of responsibility and keeps her busy.

Being busy, Sheila said, is far superior to the alternative—not working—which she also experienced not long ago. The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Dislocated Worker Program intervened and helped transform her from a layoff victim to a medical coding and billing professional with the highest national certification offered in the field.

The transformation happened at a pace that Sheila admits still surprises her at times.

“I was in a dead-end job where I had gone just as far as I could anyway,” Sheila said. “When my layoff happened, I took the opportunity to make a positive out of it and go back to school.”

But having the desire to go to college to train for a new career and being able to pay for college are two different things. Although Sheila had the resolve, she didn’t have the money. She also lacked the confidence to jump into college, despite having 10 years of real-life work experience under her belt.

“I had been to vocational school, but I had never been in a real college atmosphere before,” Sheila said. “I was 40 years old and really scared to death about going back to school.”

After her October 2000 layoff, Sheila was determined to try despite her doubts. WIA helped her with both her funding and confidence issues.

Initially, Sheila went to her local Kentucky Department for Employment Services (DES) office in Knott County after her layoff to look at the jobs posted there. She was hoping to find work that would help her afford to attend college, she said.

However, the DES staff referred her to Bobbie Slone, who works for L.K.L.P. Community Action Council as a WIA case manager. (L.K.L.P. provides WIA services under contract with the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. [EKCEP]). Bobbie informed Sheila that she was eligible for Dislocated Worker Program supportive services that would cover college-related costs for transportation, food and books. Sheila learned the program would also fully cover her college tuition.

That revelation changed everything, Sheila said. Instead of worrying about how to afford college, she could start thinking about what career to choose. She decided to pursue an associate’s degree of applied science in medical insurance. Having worked some in medical billing in her last job, Sheila knew that degree would allow her to do billing and coding at a skilled, professional level. As part of that job, she would need a detailed knowledge of the diagnosis codes doctors assign patients in order to ensure that patients were accurately billed for their medical procedures.

Sheila enrolled in the WIA Dislocated Worker Program in January 2001 and began her studies at Hazard Community and Technical College. As her education progressed, the WIA program provided her much more than just the financial assistance.

“Bobbie was my go-to person,” Sheila said. “It seemed like all throughout this, I didn’t have the confidence I needed, and she was always there helping me pick up the pieces.

“I still play on that now,” she added. “When I don’t have the confidence to do something, I just buckle down and think to myself that this is something that has to be done, and I know how to do it. The WIA built me that foundation to go by.”

Bobbie said she knew early on that Sheila would end up being a “success story,” both in her education and career.

“You know the ones who are really going to work hard and succeed,” Bobbie said. “She was excited when she first came to me, and when she got a 4.0 average on her first set of grades, I knew there was nothing she couldn’t do.”

Sheila’s confidence grew throughout her two years of study, and she graduated with honors in May 2003. She said that confidence helped her through her greatest challenge and on to what she considers her greatest achievement: passing the National Medical Coding Exam. The exam—administered by the American Health Information Management Association—is the highest form of national certification, she said.

“That’s a medical coder’s version of the Bar Exam,” Sheila said with a laugh. “It was always my goal to become a certified coder, and I am as much—if not more—proud of that as I am of the degree I earned.”

Her education and certification opened the door for Sheila to be hired soon after graduation as medical billing manager for Appalachian Physicians in Hazard. Less than a year later, she was offered her current position with ARH.

Sheila admits her future looks truly bright for the first time. Sheila is happy in her job with ARH, and may get to teach a class in outpatient coding at Hazard Community and Technical College if enough students sign up for it.

She is glad she will never again be stuck in a situation like she was in October 2000. It was WIA, she said, that bridged the gap between her past and her future.

“I don’t believe in a lot of handouts, but I didn’t look at the WIA as a handout,” Sheila said. “I looked at it as a way to help me help myself. Without that help, there’s no way I could have finished, and that help is there for anyone else as long as they ask and accept it.”