Medical
billing and coding is a growing industry. The stability of this field goes hand
in hand with the stability experienced by the health care industry in general.
This is caused by the continued growth of the entire medicine field and the
catalyst at the back of this growth is the demand for more health care
services.
The world
population is aging and so more and more people are getting health conscious
and require more health care service.
All these reasons drive the growth in the medicine field and there’s no
sign of it slowing down any time soon.
This is
good for those looking for a career in health care, the clinical side of health
care is surely an exciting place to work in but for those who don’t have the
appropriate medical training, the administrative side of health care, the side
that is responsible for record keeping, management and finance is also a good
place to get into. One particular field to get into is medical billing and
coding. It’s the field that is responsible for the health care insurance
revenue cycle.
If you are
interested, here’s a quick overview of what medical billers and coders do.
1. Patient’s insurance credential
verification – Medical billers and coders verify the insurance credentials of
patients who are opting to use their medical insurance coverage to pay for
health care services. This task involves determining the health insurance
coverage.
2. Patient’s information entry – Medical
billers and coders must have all the appropriate patient information that will
include personal information like name, address, contact number, office address
and insurance policy identification number.
All these are critical in filing the health insurance claim.
3. CPT and ICD-9 coding – This task
involves applying the proper medical standard codes to services rendered to
insured patients. This information will be used as basis for the claim.
4. Claims Submission, Follow-up and
reporting – This final task is a critical part of the cycle and a medical
biller and coder must stay on top of this task and give proper feedback to
management and the health care service provider.
The above
tasks are just a small part of the entire medical billing and coding process
but it is enough to give you a clear idea of the work you will do if you
decided to work as a medical biller and coder.
Just one reminder though, even if you will just be working on the
administrative side of the health care industry and will be mostly doing paper
work, you will still be required to know by theory medical practices and the
human anatomy.
However, you don’t have to worry. A proper training
will provide you with the necessary knowledge on all of these. So if you are
really serious about medical billing and coding, get trained the soonest
possible time.
