Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Medical Coding Is Difficult For People To Master

By Eddie Longwinders


If you are fresh out of medical billing and coding school, then you are probably looking for a job. You are ready to show the world what you have to offer. You spent time studying for your college degree and now want it to pay off. However, you apply for jobs and nobody is hiring you. This is typical when it comes to medical coding and billing. It is not easy to find a job in these areas for several reasons. For starters, medical billers need lots of experience. The new ICD-10 has over 69,000 codes. ICD-9 only had around 14,000. Even if you are fresh out of school, you cannot possibly know all of these codes. It would be impossible for you to know everything. It is important for everything to take place as it should.

There is a lot of short term training that companies provide for a new biller. Often, a student is put into an internship program in order to better their skills. It is up to the company to train a biller properly. The reason for this is that billing requires an in depth study of codes. Most people that do coding say that they enjoy the industry because it gives them a chance to help doctors. Doctors depend on their coders to get them a good return from the insurance companies. Many doctors today are losing thousands of dollars because their in house billers are not billing properly. It is clear that billers are unique and time proves their worth. A good biller often gets paid over $70,000 per year. If you are getting your employer high returns, then they are going to want to keep you around. It is important to allow all of the pieces to come together.

It is becoming a battle between insurance companies and doctors. Doctors believe that they are right because nobody should tell them what the needs of their patients are. However, insurance companies were taken financially by many hospitals, blood labs and private practices. They were often charged for treatments that a patient didn't even need. Many doctors were doing this as a way to make lots of money off insurance companies. Many blood labs were investigated for insurance fraud and had to be closed down. It is important to understand that doctors and insurance companies must learn to work together. Many doctors today are talking about leaving their private practices in order to work for hospitals. The reason for this is that hospitals guarantee paychecks every week and insurance companies don't.

Let us say the doctor has their own practice and must pay out salaries each week. If they don't know how much the insurance companies are going to give them back, they cannot possibly keep their doors open. Doctors fear that they will not have enough money to pay the bills. As sad as it is, doctors need lots of cash coming in to run their practices. Many machines that they use often cost thousands of dollars.

If you want to work for a company and not from home, you can take on several positions to include: medical billing management, health information technician, data collection, medical office management and data collection specialist. There are other titles that people use, but overall you can find yourself in a job that pays well. The main reason why someone would hire you now is if you know ICD-10 coding. If you don't, you will most likely not get hired.




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