A functioning hospital or clinic requires not just doctors and nurses, but also administrative staff who helps in running them. This includes the job of a medical biller who is responsible for recording retrieving the information related to the bills paid for services rendered in the hospitals. With the complicated systems put in place by the health insurance companies, where claims depend on the bills produced by the billing system of a hospital, it requires a lot of expertise to properly run the billing system of even the smaller clinics.
To become a Medical biller, you require a high school diploma, and to qualify an accredited program in medical billing. In the US, the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC), gives the accreditation to colleges offering medical billing and coding courses.
Job Description for Medical Billing Jobs
Medical billing requires knowledge of accounting practices, billing procedures, medical codes, insurance plans and government regulations. Medical billers submit claims into the system, as well as track the payments made by patients or clients. They also analyze the billing data to create profitability reports, advise the doctors of the possibilities of better fee practices and work to help with insurance claims for patients.
In cases where patients are having trouble meeting their billing obligations, the biller will have to make sure that such delinquent accounts are collected by making payment arrangements with the concerned patients. They may even have to work with collection agencies and slam-claims courts to collect the delinquent bills. Apart from the technical requirements of the job, the medical biller should have experience with interacting with patients and clients in a receptionist's setting.
Medical Coders
A career related to medical billing is the job of a medical coder. Like a medical biller, a medical coder too works in recoding the state of the treatment in a health care office. But rather than focus on the financial billing process, a coder notes the treatment, diagnostic and other related history of the patient. In some countries the term medical coder is used to refer to the job of medical biller too.
Job Prospects in Medical Billing and Coding
According the American Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were a total of 172,500 technicians employed in medical billing and related health information services in 2008. Most of these jobs were in hospitals, about 39% of them, and the rest worked in the office of physicians, nursing facilities, home healthcare services and outpatient care centers. The bureau predicts that the total number of technicians employed in this field will increase by 20% over the period of 2008-2018.
In the UK, the NHS is primary employer of most health care professionals, including medical billing professionals. You can see the employment opportunities with NHS on their primary jobs site jobs.nhs.uk. You can see the requirements for medical billing and coding job under the section "Wider healthcare Team" on that site. The medical billing itself comes under the Administration sub-section.