The professional job description is often referred to as medical billing and coding. This particular job remains a mystery to those of us who are not part of the medical field where all the financing takes place. Have you ever wondered what a medical billing and coding specialist does for a living?
Their job description is in the title. They are the ones who sit in the back office of the physicians office and keep track of the patients bills. In other words, they make sure that the Doctor gets paid. Good medical billing specialists make great money. One would expect as much seeing that physicians are willing to pay their medical billing specialist more money for collecting more money.
But it really goes father than just collecting and keeping up with how much patients owe. It goes much deeper. If you were to look at the medical billing and coding books, yes, I said books, one would say that is an impossible feat to memorize all the codes. But the great thing is, that while no one remembers all the codes, the medical billing specialist always has their books for reference.
What the medical billing specialist does is to bill the patient for a procedure that the physician has performed. While this seems easy enough, it gets harder. Because what starts to complicate things is that each code has a different prefix or suffix depending on the patient’s insurance. Now, wait, it gets better. Take a minute to think of all the insurance companies out there, besides Blue Cross, Medicare and Medicaid. A lot right?
The physician may just take the patient’s vital signs, and the medical billing specialist has a code for that. If the physician performs a blood test or writes a prescription for a chest X-Ray or MRI, you guessed it. There’s a code for that too. The list goes on infinitum.
If you are beginning to realize it by now, the medical billing specialist has to have a solid knowledge of medical terminology. They are working with medical terms all day.
In particular, the medical billing specialist must have a strict respect and knowledge of HIPAA regulations. We have all heard of HIPAA, the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act. Which strictly speaking states that every medical health care employee must judiciously protect a patient’s confidential information with every safe guard to keep it from falling into the wrong hands or being displayed publicly.
The medical billing and coding specialist is a true gem to most physicians. So respected are they that the physician will trust them with their personal codes to their electronic medical records system so that the billing specialist can perform their job at home.
This is very big business for the medical billing specialist. Going into their own business means that they can work from home and contract with more than one physician. Once the medical billing and coding specialist has earned the trust of the physician, the skies the limit.
While not all patient care providers want to be medical coders, the same can be said of medical billing and coding specialist. They don’t always want to be hands on with patients. Which is why there are the clinical medical assistants and the medical administrative medical assistants. It is the later that use the better part of their job for medical billing. Well there you have it. A simple explanation from someone who prefers to work on the patient side of the system. If you think that you would like to become a medical billing and coding specialist please visit our site at https://phlebotomycareertraining.com .
Not only that, once the medical and billing coding specialist passes their national board exams, they are now basically holding the gold card, because this is what physicians look for when they contract out their billing work.
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Nancy L. Kimmel obtained her PhD in Environmental Engineering in 2002, then went on to teach Physics and Mechanical Engineering at Lawrence Technological University, Henry Ford College and Oakland University. She obtained her Associate in Nursing from Henry Ford College and then went on to earn her Master Degree as a Family Nurse Practitioner and became Board Certified working as a licensed FNP in the State of Michigan. She then went on to Medical School where she is now in her 3rd year, and is also in the process of obtaining her Doctorate in Nursing Practice through Chamberlin University. She has authored the NET Study Guide, as well a several books on subjects of Math, ECG/EKG and Phlebotomy. She holds a patent on an Air Filter through the U.S. Patent Office.