Medical Billing Specialist is a professional who works with medical office and is in charge of billing. As the medical field is growing, the demand for specialists is also growing tremendously. A medical specialist works to ensure the smooth flow of claiming and collection through efficient technique. A successful billing specialist should have a good knowledge about data entry, human anatomy, medical terminologies and medical coding along with good oral and written communication skills. Customer service is also required as they have to contact patients at times. These specialists are either hired by a billing company or by an individual health care provider.
Sometimes, they are also employed by health insurance company, pharmacy and rehabilitation centers. They usually work in an office setting in a billing department. However, they can also work from home. Most of the companies and practitioners give preference to experienced medical assistant or trained medical billing specialists, because any error made in the billing process can be very frustrating and may end up in legal complexity. The billing specialists are also expected to do accounting and banking, patient charts, scheduling appointments, receiving and making phone calls, insurance verification and referrals.
Several programs are available to train students in this great field. They vary from certified courses to associate degree in medical billing. This career path is a sub specialty of medical coding. Hence, most of the courses include medical coding as well. These courses can be completed online. However, some of them require the students to attend at least few classes in each semester. These courses give the skills required to be competitive in the health care market. Certified medical billers can earn continuing education credit each year by keeping up with the new information in the billing field. Many medical billing specialists enjoy lucrative income while working independently or in a medical billing company.
Software companies have come up with a new technology which is called medical management software. This software simplifies the job of a medical billing specialist and helps in decreasing the errors in the claim processing. As computers and software gets updated very often, a medical billing specialist should have the ability to learn new things and keep up with new system.