The medical care industry is continuously growing and there’s no sign of it slowing down soon. The growth can also be seen on the allied health care services closely tied up to medicine.
The reason for this growth is the continued demand for medical care. It was further fueled in the past decade by the fact that the world population is aging and is therefore requiring more health care services.
Based on this knowledge we can easily see that one of the best industries to start a career is in medical care. With its continued growth this industry promises a stable career as well as possible fulfillment knowing that if you are a professional in this field, you are helping directly in making people’s lives better.
However, it’s not a secret as well that the traditional ways of obtaining a job in the medical industry isn’t easy nor expensive. It takes years and a lot of money to study for a health care career especially if you are working on the clinical side.
The good news is that there’s another side to the medical industry where accountants, programmers, encoders, and people from other professions can go into. That is the administrative side of the medical care industry.
Though the clinical side of health care is the hearth of this industry, allied services are also required to keep the medical care system working. Accountants, marketers, purchasers, stock room custodians, computer programmers, encoders, transcribers, and back office staff are also needed in the administrative side of the health care system.
So if you are thinking of starting a career in the medical care system but you don’t have the money to invest for a profession in the clinical side of things, you can study for one of the allied health care services. One of the fields you can go into is medical billing and coding.
Medical billing and coding is the part of the administrative side of medical care that deals with the revenue cycle. Medical billers and coders are the people that process the health insurance information of patients, the services rendered to patients and finally make sure that claims for services rendered to insured patients are submitted and settlements are received.
Though working on the administrative side of health care that particularly deals with the health insurance system, the medical billers and coders are still adept in the theoretical knowledge of medicine. Medical billers and coders won’t be able to directly provide any form of medical care to patients and are not licensed to do so but they have working knowledge of the entire body anatomy and of the diseases that affects the body. They are also adept in medical terminologies.
The working knowledge of medical billers and coders in medicine is a must. They are interacting with physicians and medical care workers so it’s a requirement that they know how the theories of medicine.
So the best way to become a medical biller and coder if you are interested in becoming one is to have professional training and learn all of the following critical knowledge required from all medical billers and coders:
1. Human anatomy, physiology and diseases
2. Medical language and terminology
3. Health insurance and reimbursement process
4. CPT and ICD-9-CM medical coding databases
These are the subjects that you must learn and master if you want to get into the health care industry by becoming a medical biller and coder. Though it will still take time to study these subjects it won’t be as hard and as expensive as studying for a career directly involved in the clinical side of medical care. Good luck!