Becoming a Medical Billing Professional

Medical billing or medical insurance billing is the process of sending claims to the insurance companies so that the payments for various healthcare services are got. If a person is computer literate he is a fit enough candidate to take up the profession of medical billing and medical coding. However he will need to be trained and be aware of a lot of new information before he can start working effectively. He has to learn about the medical billing software and must be familiar with and master the various commands used while working with it.

Who are medical coders and how is it related to medical billing? Medical billing is a subspecialty of medical coding. Medical coding is the first step in the billing process. All patient records are maintained using the ICD-9 index system so that it is compliant with the federal rules. The medical billing software has two parts to it;

* RDBM (Relational Database management)
* Electronic communication (Telephone)

The database will have all the necessary details of the medical service provider who may be the physician /hospital etc. All this information is related and converges whenever a claim is made. One batch usually consists of many such claims. Besides editing and formatting of a batch it is dissembled and sent to the insurance company or other relevant agency. There is usually a clearing house that takes care of the clearing process. If for some reason the carrier does not accept electronic claims, the clearinghouse mails a paper version of the claim.

A medical biller's most important skill includes filling up of the various medical forms correctly without any mistakes what so ever. All information required should be complete without any mistake at all. There are many medical billing training programs and schools that orient the billing candidates to the different insurance rules, medical billing software and familiarize them with the medical environment.

The author of this article is Ricci Mathew of Outsource Strategies International (OSI), a US based company that offers services in Medical Coding, Medical Billing, Medical Transcription for clients across the US.

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