Medical Field Medical field is one of the biggest fields. When I mention the word medical, the first thing come up to your mind are doctors or nurses. Some people that never work in a medical office, they don’t know there are much more position in medical file you could work at, like medical assistant, technician medical coder or biller. Someone like me, don’t like to deal with patient. Medical biller and coder is a good opportunity for me to work at. But what are medical biller and coder? Job Description.
First of all, medical billing is a process of submitting claims to insurance companies in order for health care provider to receive payment for service. Medical biller is the person that deals with claims. There are two different kinds of biller: one position is to post payment into the data base system and also recognize rather the payment is paid correctly. They have to post very carefully, make sure it post into the right account. The other position is submitting claims to insurance companies and dealing with problem claims that denied from insurance companies. How to handle denied claim?
Biller has to find out why it is denied by looking at the explanation of benefit (invoice) or by calling insurance company. They also try their best to get as much as they can from the denied claim. Medical coder is the person who uses read a medical report and gives ICD code to it. ICD-9 (International Classification of Diseases) is classifying diagnoses and procedures by a numeric system that identifies the cause of injuries or illness. Diagnoses and Procedures codes are must include in each claim. A coder need to be focus because they need to make sure it is a correct code for the claim.
In a medical insurance company, a coder job is to review a claim and make sure the code is a payable. Average Salary By Title Administrator$85K + Apprentice $30K – $35K Audit Specialist$40K – $45K Billing Coordinator $30K – $35K Billing Manager $35K – $40K Billing Supervisor $40K – $45K Coding Manager $40K -$45K Coding Professional$30K – $35K Coding Specialist $30K – $35K Compliance Manager $55K – $60K Consultant $85K + Denial/Appeals Specialist $30K – $35K Educator $40K – $45K Insurance Manager: $60K – $65K Medical Records Supervisor $40K – $45K Office Manager $40K – $45K Reimbursement Manager $30K – $35K.
Requirement Requirement is depend from the office/company. Some office may require medical experience and certain degree/ certificate. I did a research at monster. com, almost all the companies require minimum of 1 year of experience and high school graduate. Insurance companies requirements are at least 2 years college, 2-3 years work experience or medical environment and must have the knowledge of CPT-4 and ICD-9 coding. Some offices like where I’m working at does not need any requirement, but you need to know the basic stuff, which are read, write and basic of computer uses.
Median Salaries In the field of medical billing and coding are growing much faster and it should be. According to American Academy of Professional Coders survey, the median salary for medical billing and coding is $31,236 a year. Compare to year of 2002, the salary was $23,890. Each year is increase about $2000. Salaries are depend to the type of office and other reason, like education, experience or a certificate of medical billing and coding. Medical Biller’s future In the recent years, many health insurance companies and doctor’s office are increasing in New York’s population.
This is an excellent sign for medical billing’s future. These two increased will affect the whole medical billing field by increasing demands for this kind of professionals. Nowadays, the business for medical billing is massive, because almost all legal residents from baby to elderly have either private or governmental health insurance. This means health insurance is growing together with our economic. A new era for people to go to doctors will soon be replacing by simply an insurance card or an ID. This helps to improve medical billing’s job and makes it easier for medical billing businesses.
What are some advantages become medical biller and coder? Many coders and billers think they are skillful enough to start their own business, so they would work at home, a space enough to put a computer in their living room. They need a medical coding and billing software and a tracking program to run this business. It is a great job to work at home because this is a fixable work time. They can work their own schedule, so those who have young children can take more time to take care of them. Control: they can make their own decision. Freedom: doesn’t need to deal with anything from work place or coworkers.
Money: save money from transportation, child day care and also save money from buying lunch. A Variety of Health insurance Touchstone, AmeriChoice, Health Plus, Affinity, Fidelis, and Well care are the most recent health insurance company. These companies started few years and they appear to be able to expand their company, also you see a lot of advertising of insurances everywhere, newspapers, subways, buses. This is excellent news for medical field and patients, because more competitions provide better health plans and prices. For medical billings, they provided more job opportunity for medical billings.