Have you been looking for a new career or a business to go into that can be run from your home?

Have you ever thought about doing medical billing and coding?

At this point you are probably asking, “What is medical coding and billing and how much can I earn doing that?

Even though medical billing and coding are separate professions, they are an integral part of the whole billing process for medical services from doctors, health practices, hospitals and other health service providers.

Whenever a patient receives any kind of health care whether in a doctor’s office, an outpatient facility, during a hospital stay or from an Outpatient surgery (ambulatory surgical center), in order to get paid, the health care provider has to document the services they have supplied.

Where Does Medical Billing and Medical Coding Fit In?

The medical coder reads through the patient’s medical records including doctors’ or practitioners’ notes, diagnosis, results from lab tests, documentation of procedures performed, etc. Then, using the appropriate statistical classification and nomenclatures found in the CPT, ICD-9 and HCPCS code references, the coder turns this information into universal medical coding.

A medical biller uses these codes to create claims that will be paid by the patient, health insurance companies, etc. for the medical services provided.

Medical coding and billing jobs can be done by the same person or the two could work closely together to ensure invoices/claims are properly prepared and payments are collected.

The work medical coding professionals do involves a wide variety of healthcare settings from both inpatient and outpatient facilities to healthcare software vendors and third-party payers.

The codes are also be used by insurance companies’ claims adjusters to determine if the services and/or procedures are covered and to validate the claim prior to paying health care providers or reimbursing patients.

What Else is Medical Coding Used For?

In addition, the diagnosis codes are used to track health conditions and chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes mellitus, contagious diseases like the flu or norovirus. Health insurance companies, government health programs, carriers of workers’ compensation and others all use the codes to produce statistical reports and forecasting, among many other purposes.

How does someone get into this career?

It’s probably best to decide first which you want to do – medical coding or medical billing. You can do both but whichever you choose will determine the schools or the course you can use to get your training. Whatever course you take, at the very least you should be taught how to use the universal medical coding to code services and procedures, how to create claims for insurance companies, how to explain insurance company procedures and policy benefits to patients claiming for medical costs, etc.

Since the job involves so much more than simply coding procedural and diagnostic phrases, a sound knowledge of anatomy, physiology and the whole disease process is necessary to understand the signs, symptoms, causes, pathology, treatment, prognosis and procedures that have to be coded.

Some schools will offer courses only for medical billing while others offer courses for medical coding only. Some of the training options are 2 or 4 year college programs, online training courses or a hybrid program which is a combination of the two.

Because everyone learns differently, for some people particularly those new to this field, a program involving a physical classroom setting may be best. For others, online courses will provide the better answer because of the lower cost and the convenience of fitting the course into the person’s work and home life.