Achalasia can potentially be very expensive for the health system. There is no cure for Achalasia, so it is something that must be treated, sometimes as often as every 3 months (Dugdale, George & Zieve, 2010). When my mother has surgery to stretch her esophageal sphincter, the average cost of her operation ranges from $1,900 to $3,000, depending on the anesthetics and whether or not they have to suction out food stuck in the esophagus. Insurance pays the majority of costs (Brown, 2013). Achalasia affects 1 in 100,000 people (Vaezi and Richter, 1999). It may not have a huge impact on the health care system, but people typically get achalasia around their 30s, and the average life expectancy is nearly 79 years (CDC/National Center for Health Statistics , 2013). For 1 person, that's an average of 49 years of treatments and/or surgeries, not counting other problems that come with this condition, like acid reflux. This project allowed me to learn more about the digestive system and some of the different diseases. which affect it. This information will help me as a medical billing and coding professional by allowing me to distinguish between different parts of the body. For example, if I know someone who suffers from Achalasia and I do the billing, but I see that they are being billed for a procedure that has nothing to do with the digestive system, there is obviously an error . Because I was able to catch the error before they were billed, I will have saved months of work settling the bill with the patient and the insurance companies. Understanding body systems and diseases will allow me to be a more effective coder. I will be able to spot errors and know where to look for information. He...... middle of paper ......St. Louis: Elsevier/Mosby. Spechler, S. (July 12, 2013). Patient Information: Achalasia (Beyond the Basics). Retrieved from http://www.uptodate.com/contents/achalasia-beyond-the-basicsU.S. National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. (November 21, 2008). Esophageal cancer (esophageal cancer). Retrieved from http://www.medicinenet.com/esophageal_cancer/article.htmU.S. National Library of Medicine. (April 18, 2012).Appendix b: Some common abbreviations. Retrieved from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/appendixb.html Vaezi, M. and Richter, J. (1999). Diagnosis and management of achalasia. THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY, 94(12), retrieved from http://www.cpgn.net/web/uploadfile/2010/1207/20101207030852383.pdf Zieve, D., Eltz, D. and Vorvick, L. (2011, June 16).Malnutrition. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001441/