Careers To Pursue After Medical Billing School

Medical billing school will teach you the fine details of how healthcare providers and health insurance companies communicate with each other, as the communication system involves a series of detailed and complex codes. Once you have this technical knowledge, there are several promising careers that you can pursue.

Medical Billing Specialist

Most medical billing specialists work in the billing department of a hospital or health care group, but only organizations of a certain size can afford an employee (or several employees in the case of large organizations) who specializes in only billing. 

As a billing specialist, you'll handle a wide variety of billing issues for a hospital or health care group. You'll routinely create and send out bills, both to insurance companies and patients. You'll also be responsible for resolving any disputes with insurers or patients, and you may work with an office manager or accounts receivable specialist if an account needs to be sent to collections.

Medical Coding Specialist

A medical coding specialist does a lot of the same work as a medical billing specialist, except coding specialists tend to work for insurance companies rather than healthcare providers.

Medical coding specialists analyze bills from providers to ensure that the bills are correctly coded and charged, and specialists adjust payments to meet the terms of the contract that their insurance company has with a specific provider. Insurance companies have separate contracts with many different providers, so analyzing bills can be an involved process.

Should there be a discrepancy on a bill, a medical coding specialist will discuss the matter with a provider's medical billing specialist to bring clarification.

Medical Office Manager

You won't be qualified to run a medical office immediately upon graduating from medical billing school, but knowing medical coding is a prerequisite to being an office manager in a medical setting. This includes being an office manager at a doctor's, dentist's, orthodontist's or chiropractor's office.

In larger medical offices, the office manager must know medical coding thoroughly so that they can make sure the medical billing specialists are doing their work correctly. Managers must also be able to analyze a bill in case there's ever a serious disagreement over a bill.

In smaller medical offices, the office manager might do many jobs -- including creating and sending out the bills.

Completing a medical coding program could send you on a career path that ultimately ends in you becoming an office manager.

To learn more, contact medical billing schools near you.