How to become a Medical Biller
To become a medical biller, the most basic requirement is a high school degree. However, more and more companies look for employees to have some college education related to either health or to general accounting practices.
Medical billers are responsible for processing and outputting medical bills. Medical billing requires a detailed knowledge of the medical billing norms used at hospitals, medical offices, health insurance companies, and by the patient in question. Medical billing workers are in constant contact with insurance companies and must, through a highly specific procedure, figure out what portion of medical costs are chargeable to the insurance company and what part is billable to the client.
One of the ways to become a medical biller is to begin as an administrative assistant in a medical office. When workloads get too high, supervisors often train administrators in medical billing. Responsibilities might slowly accrue until the employee receives a proper promotion to medical biller. Increasingly, computers and software programs are taking on many of the duties of the medical biller. However, the health care business is growing, so the amount of medical billers needed, even if the job is more automated and data entry based, should increase as well.
Becoming a medical biller is often a good first step into an accounting career. The billing expertise developed in a hospital or medical office is also transferable to other fields that have complicated billing procedures, like law, shipping, or wholesale distribution. But of all these industries, fully one third of all billers are medical billers. Becoming a medical biller is the best place to start. |