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Medical Coding and Billing

Searching for the formula to success? While medical coding and billing may not make you an instant success, it sure offers you a combination of ingredients that will surely jumpstart your career.

Health care and information technology are the two fast-growing fields of industry market. Medical coding and billing actually combines these two to give your career tremendous potential. As an important aspect of Health Information Management (HIM), medical coding and billing is one area of the medical industry that you don't want to let pass.

The number of healthcare procedures is escalating every year as the population ages. As such, there is a very high demand for skilled specialists trained in medical coding and billing and in patient information technology, insurance processing and reimbursement. The medical coding and billing professional is an expert on patient data. Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers rely on these data to go about their respective functions. By maintaining, collecting, and analyzing health information, your work as a medical coding and billing specialist makes an important contribution to the delivery of quality healthcare.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, health information technology is one of the 20 fastest growing occupations in the U.S. so you can expect HIM professionals to be in high demand in the health sector in the next twenty to thirty years.

The Medical Office: A Closer Look

The medical office is divided into two distinct areas - the front office and the back office. The front office is one reserved for medical coding and billing work. Front office personnel work with patient records, insurance billing, computerized accounting, patient databases, transcription of dictated notes, and applying standardized codes to patient records among other activities.

On the other hand, back office refers to personnel who specialize in care giving. Such include physicians, nursing personnel, and a variety of assistant titles.

Medical Coding and Billing: Employment Opportunities

The employment opportunities in medical coding and billing are wide in range. Health information management skills are in high demand and individuals who have such skills may be employed in a wide variety of locations. Since patient record coding and insurance billing affects every medical institution, persons with these skill sets are widely desirable.

Employment opportunities may be found in private practices, multi-practice clinics, diagnostic imaging firms, medical laboratories, hospitals, and contracting companies that provide billing, coding, and medical records handling services to medical institutions.

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