Another important aspect in the field of medicine is medical billing and coding. Billing and coding are two different job descriptions. The demand for billing and coding positions are growing at an alarming rate. “This is one of the fastest growing fields in healthcare.” said the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These jobs have a wide range of procedures–sending insurance claims for compensation and documenting the services performed in the correct coding.
Medical Billing and Coding jobs were completely different a few years ago. It involved filling out patients information on forms and keeping them in a file in a filing cabinet. This was a very chaotic and time consuming task. Nowadays it is done much more easily, efficiently and in less time by software on computers. This takes stress off the billers and is easier for the coders to get more work done. Medical Billers follow some procedural steps to carry out their duties.
These steps can be summarized in the following order: Verification, patients’ demographic entry, coding, charge entry, claims commission, payment posting, A/R (Accounts Receivable) follow-up, denial management, and reporting. Medical coders also follow some steps to carry out their duties.
They include first accessing the patient’s charts. Next they pre-code and code the ICD-9 and CPT (International Classification of Diseases and Current Procedural Terminology). Thirdly they perform quality check. And lastly they ensure client feedback. Advances in technology have indeed made medical billing and coding much easier.
Through updated soft wares medical coders in offices, insurance companies and hospitals are able to follow these steps to ensure that all the information found in patients charts are accurately converted into a series of alphanumeric codes (called ICD-9) which are used to determine the amount to pay a physician for his work. Billers are also able to make sure that patients and insurance companies are billed the right amount.