Flexible work hours, employment options and career growth for Medical Billers and Coders

Various options in Medical billing and coding jobs provide ideal opportunities to billers and coders to choose from an array of different types of work environments giving them several opportunities along with flexibility in the rapidly growing health care field. According to a study by the American Association of Professional Coders (AAPC) to determine the types of environments in which medical billers and coders worked, stated most medical billers and coders work in:

Physicians’ offices	49.2%
Billing companies	11.8%
Outpatient hospitals	9.8%

Medical Billing and Coding Work Environment & Employment Situations

The report depicted that – 68% of medical billers and coders were paid by the hour, while 32% were on salary. Moreover 84.6% worked full-time, while 11.9% of medical billers and coders work flex-time and 3.5% work part-time.

• 7194 from 7898 (91%) respondents agreed accuracy determined the value of a medical biller and coder to their manager, while the remaining 9% disagreed
• 6476 from 7898 (82%) respondents agreed their managers would determine their value based on productivity, while the remaining 18% disagreed

Giving an insight that on average, accuracy is slightly more valuable than productivity to an employer and overall depicting medical billers and coders are expected to efficiently produce accurate work.

Growth & Profitability in varied environments

Careers in Medical Billing and Coding is highly promising providing flexibility, growth and profitability in varied work environments – from home, a medical billing company or working from home in medical billing jobs with larger health care firms that make and track medical billing work assignments electronically. One of the reasons for the growth in varied environments is the wide availability of online training in medical billing and medical billing software.

Health care and in turn medical billing and coding has grown with the scope of health information management over the past five years and besides being restricted to only the doctor’s office the scope of medical billing has now grown to hospitals, pharmacies, nursing homes, mental healthcare facilities, rehabilitation centers, insurance companies, health maintenance organizations (HMOs), consulting firms, the government and health data organizations.

Moreover to combat the increasing shortage of medical billers and coders across US states one of the new techniques evolved include contract services. Contract coding companies have emerged as a trend and have become nearly a $5 billion dollar business and are now helping many hospitals in US states to increase their revenue by almost 50%. Due to outsourcing hospitals and physician revenues are rising and in turn coders salaries too are increasing as they can earn 20 to 25% more than what is offered at most hospitals. Medicialbillersandcoders.com experts fulfill this need as key players in the healthcare workplace to deliver quality healthcare by capturing accurate and timely medical data. Our Coding professionals possess a thorough understanding of the health record’s content we have thousands of medical billers and our certified medical coders are trained to understand the procedures to be coded.

Flexible work hours, employment options and career growth for Medical Billers and Coders

Various options in Medical billing and coding jobs provide ideal opportunities to billers and coders to choose from an array of different types of work environments giving them several opportunities along with flexibility in the rapidly growing health care field. According to a study by the American Association of Professional Coders (AAPC) to determine the types of environments in which medical billers and coders worked, stated most medical billers and coders work in:

Physicians’ offices	49.2%
Billing companies	11.8%
Outpatient hospitals	9.8%

Medical Billing and Coding Work Environment & Employment Situations

The report depicted that – 68% of medical billers and coders were paid by the hour, while 32% were on salary. Moreover 84.6% worked full-time, while 11.9% of medical billers and coders work flex-time and 3.5% work part-time.

• 7194 from 7898 (91%) respondents agreed accuracy determined the value of a medical biller and coder to their manager, while the remaining 9% disagreed
• 6476 from 7898 (82%) respondents agreed their managers would determine their value based on productivity, while the remaining 18% disagreed

Giving an insight that on average, accuracy is slightly more valuable than productivity to an employer and overall depicting medical billers and coders are expected to efficiently produce accurate work.

Growth & Profitability in varied environments

Careers in Medical Billing and Coding is highly promising providing flexibility, growth and profitability in varied work environments – from home, a medical billing company or working from home in medical billing jobs with larger health care firms that make and track medical billing work assignments electronically. One of the reasons for the growth in varied environments is the wide availability of online training in medical billing and medical billing software.

Health care and in turn medical billing and coding has grown with the scope of health information management over the past five years and besides being restricted to only the doctor’s office the scope of medical billing has now grown to hospitals, pharmacies, nursing homes, mental healthcare facilities, rehabilitation centers, insurance companies, health maintenance organizations (HMOs), consulting firms, the government and health data organizations.

Moreover to combat the increasing shortage of medical billers and coders across US states one of the new techniques evolved include contract services. Contract coding companies have emerged as a trend and have become nearly a $5 billion dollar business and are now helping many hospitals in US states to increase their revenue by almost 50%. Due to outsourcing hospitals and physician revenues are rising and in turn coders salaries too are increasing as they can earn 20 to 25% more than what is offered at most hospitals. Medicialbillersandcoders.com experts fulfill this need as key players in the healthcare workplace to deliver quality healthcare by capturing accurate and timely medical data. Our Coding professionals possess a thorough understanding of the health record’s content we have thousands of medical billers and our certified medical coders are trained to understand the procedures to be coded.

Medical billing to assist Primary Care Physicians in streamlining their practice

The lack of primary care providers in the country is a topic which has been hotly debated among many circles and written about vehemently. Not many medical students are ready to enter primary care due to lack of great financial prospects in the future. This is resulting in even more shortage of physicians and problems when it comes to the reputation of this line of medicine. The remuneration problems along with other difficulties faced by Primary Care Providers (PCPs) is affecting the revenue of PCPs and bringing a disparity between other physicians who practice other specialties of medicine. Here are numerous reasons for the reimbursement disparities for PCPs and some possible solutions for countering this problem.

One of the reasons for the lesser amount of remuneration for PCPs is that specialists who perform routine procedures such as some specific types of surgeries take lesser amount of time to complete their task compared to a PCP whose case can be of any nature. Another explanation for the comparatively lesser amount of pay of PCPs are that the majority of these are either solo practitioners or work in a small group whereas specialists like surgeons and cardiologists have a chance to work in a big hospital  with even bigger pecuniary benefits.

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There are many problems that are synonymous with the problems of PCPs and of those faced by solo practices. The burden of supervising all the functions of a small practice along with carrying out the core aspects of medicine is also a hurdle that hampers efficient time and financial management. Moreover, the Medicare rates given to PCPs are causing resentment among PCPs where a group of people have a filed a suit against Medicare regarding their low reimbursement rates to PCPs. Medicare cuts are another problem faced by especially PCPs since they are responsible for treating a large number of elderly patients and act as an entry point for specialties if any particular problem is diagnosed, which is usually a possibility in elderly patients.

The health reforms have provided a glimmer of hope for PCPs due to many policies that have been implemented. However, compliance of these policies is also a challenge that is faced by physicians and providers along with PCPs. The incentives provided by the government for the implementation of EMR and EHR systems can be a definite financial advantage, especially for PCPs. However streamlining all the departmental process to implement this cutting edge technology is perhaps the most important prerequisite for qualifying for the incentives through ‘Meaningful Use’.

PCPs can take advantage of companies that provide assistance in the latest departmental processes required for maximizing the revenue and improving the quality of care. Medicalbillersandcoders.com is one such company that streamlines all your processes such as revenue cycle management, denial management and, of course, also performs medical billing and coding. We also provide other value added services such as consultancy and research.

For more information visit: medical billing services, medical billing companies

Job Opportunities: A New Positive Outlook for New Physicians amidst healthcare reforms

The shortage of physicians, the health reforms, the skyrocketing costs of health care , the Medicare cuts worry and the influx of health IT into the health industry has created a bit worrying albeit a dynamic environment. Although there are critics who oppose the health reforms and suggest other methods, there are optimistic physicians as well as patients when it comes to improving healthcare even in this environment of hullaballoo that threatens to change the drudgery of the maintenance of the health care industry in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a physician’s profession is much coveted and in demand and has immense growth prospects in the future which can be a good omen for the future of health care delivery in the country. A recent survey from physician search firm Merritt Hawkins revealed that more than 75% of physicians in their final year of training received at least 50 job solicitations, and 50% got 100 or more.

The reform has forced many solo and small group practices to pack up their practices and opt for employment at hospitals and along with bigger group of physicians since these have started to hire physicians. Hospitals are also hiring physicians since the number of insured in the country is soon going to rise by about 31 million and physicians in hospitals would be desperately needed to treat the patients who would inundate hospitals after the reforms take hold. Many physicians are retiring and almost one third of physicians in the country are set to retire in next few years which create opportunities for new young physicians and providers to take their place. Moreover, physicians are relieved of the non-clinical obligations while working in hospitals such as billing, extensive interaction with payers, and other administrative tasks.

Although solo practices and small group practices are slowly declining, it does not necessarily imply that new jobs for physicians are not being created. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment of physicians and surgeons is set to increase by 22% between 2008 and 2018 and the reasons cited by the bureau are numerous. Physicians’ job outlook looks positive because of an expanding health industry, the increase in demand for the services of physicians, increased level of enrollment in medical schools and the policies implemented by the United States government to encourage the growth of this profession qualitatively as well as quantitatively.

The biggest challenge faced by new physicians is related not just to professional core issues but also to financial issues. There are numerous financial challenges and problems in the form of paying off the debt, implementing ‘Meaningful Use’, striving for the incentives provided by the government and avoiding financial penalties for non-compliance of health reform policies. Even with so many challenges and problems faced by new physicians who have just started practicing can successfully kick start their work in financially and professionally fruitful manner. However, support is available for physicians who are just stepping into this dynamic yet progressive health care industry in the form of processes that aim to maximize physician revenues and ease the problems faced by them in many departmental processes involved in running a practice or even when joining a hospital.

Whether as a physician, you work in a hospital or starting a solo practice, medical billers and coders at www.medicalbillersandcoders.com can offer you a wide range of services that will not only assist you in medical billing and coding but also facilitate services such as revenue cycle management, denial management, interaction with payers, research, consultancy, streamlining various processes for EMR or EHR implementation, and assistance in health IT implementation in this dynamic health industry. This will help you in avoiding the pitfalls faced by new physicians in the country and also assist in increasing your revenue in a lesser amount of time.

For more information visit: medical billing

Hospitalists as Primary Care Providers

In all the states of the US, healthcare is becoming an integrated affair with hospitals combining traditional healthcare services like surgical treatments with primary health care activities responsible for elementary requirements of a treatment cycle from blood tests to coordination of various activities within a treatment episode to ensure availability of all components of healthcare services under one roof, when seen in the larger context, and advantages like proper coordination between various components/phases of a care cycle and day-to-day patient care within the scope of a treatment episode.

Primary healthcare providers integrating with hospitals are, in a loose sense, family physicians, traditionally located outside the big organized healthcare space, relocating themselves to the sphere of hospital-provided healthcare system where they are called hospitalists. Albeit, the difference is hospitalists have to be more acquainted with sophisticated healthcare procedures to function in the environment of a big healthcare operator.

This practice of hospitals providing physician services (or integrating with hospitalists) is over a decade old in US healthcare which owes its survival to the fact that these services (or hospitalists) bring into conventional hospital treatment a combination of old-world healthcare values like individualized attention to patients and patient safety and new-age methods like proper coordination, documentation, etc., which have collectively been found to lead to improvement in quality of treatment and reduced costs.

However, primary care mostly deals with elderly patients suffering from ailments that require not a touch-and-go treatment but protracted care either through extended stays in hospitals or through recurrent readmissions. Because of their age bracket and the nature of their ailments mostly related to heart brain, lung, lever, etc., these patients account for majority of medical expenses billable to Medicare. 

This being the nature of aliments primary healthcare mostly deals with, its involvement is not restricted to any one part of treatment but is spread like a grid across the treatment cycle, forming its basics starting from, if viewed from a financial viewpoint, registration to reimbursement.  And this leaves healthcare providers to handle financial administration activities that warrant a strong Revenue Cycle Management system, a process that covers the entire range of financial needs/activities resulting from initiation to termination of a treatment episode.

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Medical Billers and Coders, through its RCM consulting services, scrutinizes the areas of deficiencies in your Revenue Cycle Management, like outdated processes, software inadequacies, under-optimized   workforce, unidentified training needs, and helps detect the sources of revenue leakage and plugs them by streamlining your processes. As a result, a coherent RCM process helps healthcare organizations to prevent registration errors, lack of pre-verification of insurance coverage and facilitates an effective collection policy for insurance deductibles and co-pays, and an in-depth analysis of Account Receivables reports on a payer- patient-service basis. Additionally, it also prevents audits by detecting overpayment by Medicare and helping return it on time.

Medicalbillersandcoders.com brings these RCM benefits to its clients through a team of specialists with expertise and experience of dealing with healthcare providers for years combined with sound knowledge of changing trends and regulations operating in the US healthcare industry, resulting in saved cost and time for healthcare operators.

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