Sunday, June 28, 2009

Medical Billing Workload Estimates

So how much medical billing work is your potential employer expecting of you? Most companies require anywhere from 40 - 60 medical bills per day depending on the number of accounts the company has secured. If you decide to work for yourself, you will be able to work as much as you want.

If you are a self starter, this line of work can be quite lucrative. Once you gain experience and billing software, you will be able to work from home if you like. However, this work can tend to tedious and quite involved once you get the hang of it.

The Real Story of Medical Billing from Home

Before they get started, many people never take the time to truly assess how much work it takes to do medical billing from home. There will be some weeks where you will work 10 plus hours a day, since you may be processing complex medical bills.

Medical billing from home is much different than a normal medical billing job. At a "normal" medical billing job, you clock-in at 8 AM and clock-out at 5 PM. In between those hours, you get as much work done as possible, and go home once you're done. You don't have to worry about bringing work home with you. However, when you're processing medical bills from home, you aren't paid based on the amount of hours you work. You are paid for your results. If you're goal is to process 60 bills per day for the day, it doesn't matter whether you complete this task in 2 hours or 12 hours.

In order to perform medical billing from home, you will need a computer with specialized medical billing software installed. If you are being employed by a medical review company and work from home, they will provide the software for you. If you are working for yourself, you will have to purchase the software yourself. The software costs anywhere between a hundreds of dollars to a couple thousand dollars.

Before you purchase your software, make sure to give the prospective software a test run to make sure it meets your needs. Many software providers offer a free trial version to allow you to get familiar with the software and determine if it will meet your needs before buying anything. Try a couple of software options before making up your mind on any particular software.

External Resources:
Medical Billing Resource Guide
Quick Guide to Medical Coding

Medical Billing Course Research

Before you sign-up for your billing and coding training course, make sure it is an accredited one. The following organizations and governing bodies govern grants accreditation: American Health Information Management Association, Accreditation of Allied Health Education Program, or regional accrediting organizations.

Your billing and coding training should be able to educate you and prepare you to perform competently in the medical billing field. Once you complete your training course, you should be able to charge patient accounts, register patients' information, prepare and post transactions, perform an insurance verification, to code and bill insurance claims, and to collect patient payments.

External Resources:
Medical Billing Company Research
Billing and Coding Resource Guide