medical coding training at home.
A popular job for its relatively short education requirements and ability to do from home, the medical coding and billing salary is an important part of why people choose it. The money to be made as one of these professionals is not particularly impressive, but since the training programs are only nine months on average, it's a lot of bang for your buck.
The terms medical coding and billing are used to denote two separate processes that are required for doctors offices, hospitals and clinics to get money from insurance companies. Usually, people train in order to do both jobs, but some people train for only one or the other. More often, if they choose to specialize in one part, it is done after training is complete and they get a job. Education takes about one academic year and usually consists of a certificate program from a vocational school or community college.
Coding is the term used to describe the process of rendering patient files into codes used by insurance companies to describe every possible ailment, treatment, and medical term possible. A dictionary of these codes is used to determine which ones are applicable to each patient. A few different dictionaries exist, and the insurance agency being billed determines which codes are used.
Billing is rather self-explanatory. People in charge of this part of the process take the coded results and submit a bill to the insurance company regarding their portion of covered expenses. People working in both parts of these jobs sometimes work for the insurance companies as well as the doctors, making sure that everything is submitted correctly and no fraudulent bills are paid.
While these jobs are essential, hiring someone to do them is not. Some smaller doctors' offices still do the job on their own. But in most cases, small doctor's offices hire a single person (a freelancer or contractor) to do the job, and larger ones hire a firm or company that provides the service for many different hospitals, clinics, and other medical care professionals.
This is an office job, usually done by people in corporate offices or from home via telecommuting. Little or no patient contact is involved in most cases. Attention to detail and an ability to keep sensitive information to themselves are important qualities in these professionals, who have access to many patient files. They generally make between $24,290 and $34,490 (the middle 50 percent in 2008).
medical coding training at home.