Medical billing careers are among the top contenders of the recent job explosion in the healthcare industry. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that it is one of the top twenty occupations in healthcare.
Medical billing careers are pivotal to the success of the medical practice. It is often referred to as the doctor's key to getting paid for the services he rendered. Medical billing careers encompass a wide scope and a broad range of responsibilities as it includes front office tasks, among others, in its list of things to do.
Nature of Work
Success in medical billing careers is not as easy as it is often made out to be by those ads you see in the classified section of the local newspaper or the Internet. Not everyone who enters into one end up rich. Competition is fierce and in the end, the competent ones are the only ones who survive.
To achieve some measure of success in medical billing careers, you will need to know all the basic concepts related to the job. These concepts include medical terminology, anatomy, proper form completion, and required coding - all of which are very important to having thriving medical billing careers as doctors, physicians, and internists would hardly hire anyone who doesn't at least know the basics of the job.
Medical billing careers also require that a person know basic computer information and have a typing speed of at least 35 words per minute. This is because medical billing, sometimes described as practice management, involves all the front office aspects of a medical office, including patient scheduling, appointments, organization of records, billing and accounting, and o on.
Medical billing professionals work with patients, other offices' staff, medical personnel and other office personnel so your people skills are important as well. Customer service is an important part of medical billing careers as the people you contact are either colleagues or patients that could be at stressful points in their lives.
Working Condition
Medical billers usually work in an office setting. That is, medical billing careers involve working regular office hours just any regular employee - forty hours a week from Monday through Friday. Billing offices and services can be found in large corporate buildings. They may also be found in suburban offices and in the doctor's office itself. Medical billers may also work for insurance companies where overtime, overnight, or late-hour shifts are available.