Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Medical Billing Online - A Demanding And Rewarding Job

By Piper Wongeh

Medical billing online is a kind of work which you do from home. The numerous online scams, however, are a major problem in this area. These scam artists disguise themselves and try to sell you junk. The Federal Trade Commission frequently sends out warnings about the activities of scam artists in the medical bill review field.

Worst than that, even the legitimate places may disappoint you. They assure you that they will help you get to the potential employers, and then merely provide you with a list of health care providers. In many cases, the health care providers are actually not even looking for any medical billing services. To avoid the frustration, it's important to do your research, instead of simply jumping into some medical billing online course.

Regarding medical billing online work, a few things to be concerned about are: Do you posses any knowledge of working in the medical field? Will the potential employers be willing to acquiring your services right away, or would they require you to work at their office for the first 1-2 years, so that they could get to know you and your skills? Can you handle being your own boss?

Medical billing online is the same as regular paper medical billing, but it is done online instead. With the advance of Internet technologies, there are now quite a few services which can be done from home.

As a medical billing online service provider, you will be organizing statements and bills, and talking to patients and the insurance companies, either by phone or by email. You will have to be comfortable with encoding and decoding diseases, procedures, and billing statements. Last but not the least, you are also entailed to follow up on the failed payments, payment denials and refusals.

Medical billing online also requires data-entry of patients' into a special software application (medical billing software). Coding of the procedures is strict, and mistakes in coding may result in legal implications. Therefore, you as a medical billing coders have to be highly knowledgeable and skilled.

Larger medical billing online companies, are more appealing to health care providers. Where can you find your first job assignments? You can try freelance websites, where health care organizations post jobs for billing coders. However, there will be many other people competing for the same job.

Before you proceed to paid courses and expensive software, which together may cost a thousand, or even, several thousand dollars, you may also want to call several doctors' offices, and try to find out if they will be interested in giving you an opportunity to work for them as a medical billing online service provider. If you cannot find the answers to your questions by phone or email, you may actually want to visit a few offices and to talk to someone on their lunch break.

In most cases, you will have to contact health care providers directly. Different means of doing this are: through job applications, emailing or calling.

A very important point to explore is the kind of earnings you can expect as a medical billing online service provider? This depends upon the amount of work you carry out. A full-time medical billing online service provider can expect up to $100,000.

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