Tag Archives: Medical

Free Medical Billing Software

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Free medical billing software may sound too good to be true, but it does exist. The question is whether this software is worth using even though you don’t have to pay for it!

To be sure there is a lot of free and open-source software out there that is outstanding. However when you are trying to build a career in the medical billing and coding field, “free” software may not be worth using.


Medical Billing

Here’s why……

When you are evaluating medical billing and coding software, you have to judge it based upon how well it addresses your needs and requirements. Cost is a secondary consideration, because let’s face it, if it doesn’t do what you need it to do, it’s not a bargain at any price!

There is a role for free medical billing software though, and that is for training. You can use a free program to begin to familiarize yourself with billing and coding software, knowing that you will be upgrading to a software program that you DO have to pay for.

What are the free programs like? What do they offer and what do they lack that make them unsuitable for use in a professional billing and coding environment?

Here are some considerations:

Is the medical billing and coding software fully HIPAA compliant?
Can the software be used with VPN networks?
Does the software provide a secure socket layer or other encryption?
Can the software file claims electronically through EDI (electronic data interface)
Does the software include free upgrades or do you have to pay for them?
Does the software allow you to follow up in claims after you submit them?
Does the software include a clean easy to navigate interface?
Does the software seamlessly integrate all functions that you will be using when billing and coding?
Does the software include full customer support and problem resolution?

note: HIPAA compliance is a standard that involves the secure electronic storage and transmission of private protected health information. The sensitive nature of private health records makes it absolutely essential that all software adhere to this standard

Another thing to consider about free medical billing software is whether the software is web based or resides on your computer. Obviously a web-based system allows you to access the system from any computer with an Internet connection, rather than having to be at your own personal computer.

One company that offers the software for free, (there is no setup fee), and charges a monthly fee of .50 is FreeMedicalBilling.Net

This may be a good option for someone just starting out in the business that cannot afford some of the more costly software programs on the market. Again however, you must make sure that whatever software you use, it provides all of the functionality you really need, and is HIPAA compliant.

A few of the best free medical billing software applications available for free on the net are:

AdvancedMD (advancedmd.com)
FreeDOM (freedommd.com)
Office Manager (sosoft.com)
ClinicGate Advanced http://clinicgate-advanced.medsites.qarchive.org
MyOnline Practice – which is a Medical Practice Management System

Perhaps the best way to choose free medical coding and billing software that you will be relying on for your medical billing and coding business is to seek the advice of someone who has experience in this field and can make a recommendation based upon their own personal experience as well as observations about what seems to work best in a demanding professional environment.

Free Medical Billing Software

Medical Billing

Medical Billing and Coding Job Description: What Are the Normal Duties and Responsibilities?

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Being happy with the job you do and getting emotional fulfillment from it is very important to most people and to be able to reach this level of enjoyment you must know something about the job you will be doing. Before even you submit your application to an employer to become their employee you should know as much about the job you are applying for as you can. Instead of waiting until you do the job to see what your enjoyment level is you should find out what you will be doing and imagine what your feelings would be when you do it.

To help you with this in reference to a career in Medical Billing and Coding here are a few roles you may fill in the field.


Medical Billing

Bookkeeping: This is one of the bigger jobs in medical billing and coding as you will need to rely on your expertise to come up with a system that works for organizing the office. You will be the one that people come to with questions about where things go and what to do with them so you must be comfortable with this type of responsibility.

Insurance Coding: When you are dealing with insurance company there are a million lines of code to remember that will allow to be paid or not to be paid. What you have to do is make sure that you are always entering the information correctly so that you can ensure that your office is getting paid. This will be one of the most vital roles that you will fulfill as a medical biller and coder.

Procedural Coding: In addition to billing insurance companies and using their codes, you will be responsible for looking over what procedures or checkups were done for specific patients and attaching a code to that. This is important so that the doctors or nurses who help with a specific patient can simply look at the codes on their chart to know what has been done. Next to getting people paid, this is as important of a role as you can have.

There may be other duties and responsibilities out there in the medical billing and coding field, but these are the most common as they have to do with what is in the title, medical billing and coding. If these roles sound interesting to you it would be worth your time to look in to a career in medical billing and coding.

Medical Billing and Coding Job Description: What Are the Normal Duties and Responsibilities?

Medical Billing

Medical Billing and Coding Salary Range

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If you’ve been thinking about going to work or starting a career as a medical biller or coder you’re probably wondering what kind of salary to expect. A biller or billing specialist helps process insurance claims and can have a variety of titles including Medical Billing Specialist, which requires national certification by taking and passing a national exam. A medical coder or coding specialist does the coding and is a separate profession.

A coder helps code insurance claims and this is often done before they reach medical billing services.

If you plan to take billing or coding training know that there is plenty of money available for online or on-campus classes, see end of article.


Medical Billing

Look in your phone book and see how many billing services or medical billing services there are in your area. Many large clinics and doctors’ offices may do their billing in-house.

If you’ve had billing training or medical coding training you should start at a good salary. If possible, call some of the billing services you find listed and ask if taking a few online classes is enough or if a Medical Billing Specialist certificate is required or not and if it will get you a higher salary. Ask how often billing and coding jobs become available. Ask if they do coding also, if you’re interested in coding, most do.

The salary range for a Medical Billing Assistant or Specialist generally runs between ,000 to ,000 a year but will depend a lot on the area of the country you live in, your education and any previous job experience you have that relates to this field. Of course, if you have previous job experience you’ll make more and possibly more than these upper limits. An hourly rate can be anywhere from to an hour or more.

You may be able to get billing work to do at home but it may require expensive software. And this is not the way to go unless you have plenty of experience in the field and know what you’re doing.

As a medical coder, you can make from ,600 to ,800 or more depending again on where you live, education, training and experience. If you have a master’s degree, you’ll earn more, averaging ,000 a year or so, which is more than you would with an associate or bachelor’s degree.

However, most medical billing and medical coding careers do not require extensive education or training. Generally, a few online classes are enough to get a good job with a good salary in either field. When you make your calls, you can ask if college degrees are expected or if online classes are considered enough training. I mention this because each company has different criteria and it doesn’t hurt to get some comparisons.

You can get medical coding or billing training online or at local colleges and universities. However most people take their medical billing classes or programs online from specialized schools.

You want to research these schools thoroughly and compare classes, programs and expectations to find the best medical and coding schools. To save money you don’t want to take any classes you don’t need. Some schools will try to get new students to take medical terminology and other classes they don’t need and it would not affect your future salary. There is plenty of financial aid and other money available for online classes including medical billing and coding classes and training.

Medical Billing and Coding Salary Range

Medical Billing

Medical Billing – Electronic Billing Pros and Cons

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Everything in our world is becoming more and more automated. The days of paper are becoming things of the past. Who uses typewriters any more? True, they’ve been replaced by computers and printers, but with the advent of email and modems, information doesn’t have to be printed at all any more. This is also true of medical billing to insurance carriers. With electronic billing, no longer do we have to send them a paper HICFA, but is it all good? We’re going to take a devils advocate approach to electronic billing and examine both the pros and cons of sending your bills electronically.

The pros are easy to see. With electronic billing, you obviously save a lot of paper. No longer do you have to print out each bill. With electronic billing, by using a modem, you can send that bill directly to the carrier. Not only does this save paper, but it also saves postage. The cost of that phone call, which in most cases is an 800 number, is a lot less than the cost of sending these bills snail mail.


Medical Billing

Another pro of electronic billing is accuracy. The programs that are created to send these claims electronically have built in checks for errors, since a human still has to enter the information. After the information for the bill is entered, you can run another program that checks to make sure that everything and we do mean everything, is filled out completely. Anything missing or in error is displayed on an error report which can either be printed or viewed directly on the computer.

Another pro of electronic billing is speed, not only of how quickly the claim gets to the carrier, since they don’t have to wait for the mail, but of how fast claims are paid. The reason claims are paid quicker in this manner is that the receiving carrier also has a program that checks for errors, so the claim itself doesn’t have to be manually reviewed. This speeds up the process.

It would seem from all of this that there can’t be anything bad about electronic medical billing. Oh, if only that were the truth. Unfortunately, there are things that can go wrong and all too often, do go wrong.

For starters, computers act up. Programs have bugs, especially when they are new. Because the medical industry is constantly changing, these programs have to be constantly updated. When this happens, bugs do pop up. When that happens, claims can’t be submitted until the bugs are fixed. This can effectively shut down billers for days. Not a pretty sight.

Another problem is with the actual transmission of the data itself. Modems can act up and often do. Sometimes there’s just a problem with the phone line. There may be noise on it. Unlike talking on the phone, the transmitting of data requires a perfect connection or the data doesn’t transmit properly. When this happens, the claims are rejected even though they may be valid. The data just becomes corrupted.

For the most part, electronic medical billing is a wonderful thing, but problems do occur and it is important to be prepared for those problems.

Medical Billing – Electronic Billing Pros and Cons

Medical Billing

Medical Billing Salary and Medical Coding Salary Hourly Rates

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You probably know that the medical billing field is part of the health care industry, which is the fastest growing industry for jobs in the US. And medical billers account for one of the most sought after careers because of the high demand by billing services, billing companies and doctors offices. Coding is often mentioned but it is a separate function done by coders and the codes are implemented before they reach billing.

A medical biller collects posts and manages payments on accounts for medical and health-related professionals and businesses. A Medical Billing Specialist is granted that designation after passing a national exam that certifies them thus the use of the title. They generally will get a much higher hourly rate than a medical billing assistant or clerk.


Medical Billing

Medical billers submit health or medical claims and do all the necessary follow up with the health insurance companies. Billers work with patients to solve any health or medical billing problems that may have cropped up. They’ll help work out a repayment plan and help find resources to help patients make their payments that are not covered by health insurance.

A medical billing salary depends on the type and amount of education or medical billing training you have. You may get paid more if you have more education. Or you may get paid more if you have more experience. Generally the more experience you have will get you a higher rate rather than just starting out with more education. In most cases you will want to have at least a high school diploma or GED.

Because there are no specific education requirements you can try to work your way into this field if you are already working in the same company, doctor’s office or clinic.

Salary will also depend on what city and state you live in and how much demand there is for medical billers. Although most billing jobs are daytime jobs and 40 hours per week, many insurance companies have evening and graveyard shifts in order to get the billing work done. Working these hours will give you a higher rate of pay.

So starting out you could be making an hour with little experience in a smaller billing company or large doctor’s office or clinic. You can work your way up to or an hour or get medical billing training and start at a rate in between. There are many variables in terms of salary and the best suggestion is to call around to the various billing companies in your area and ask what they pay their medical billers.

Medical coders have much the same salary range based on education and experience but if they want certification they need to pass a different exam. Medical coders get a higher salary also.

If you decide you want to go to work in this industry getting the best medical billing training will give you a higher salary. Make sure to check out the financial aid available for online courses, programs, classes and schools that are available for both online and on campus education and beware of scams

Medical Billing Salary and Medical Coding Salary Hourly Rates

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Medical Billing – Distributing Duties

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It doesn’t matter whether your a large medical billing company or a small one. The last thing you want to do is to have one person do everything, as if that was even possible. This will only lead to disaster. The reason is simple. Medical billing involves more than just typing up a bill to send to an insurance carrier. There are so many behind the scenes activities, especially if you’re using DME software, that one person can’t possibly do it all. Below is just a basic list of personnel you’re going to need in order to run an efficient operation.

Starting from the ground floor up, the first thing you need to do is get the personnel required to actual setup your network and install your system. Please don’t leave this to data entry personnel or to yourself unless you are good at networking and software installation.


Medical Billing

After everything is setup, you need to have somebody to take care of security. You need to find somebody you can trust. Most likely somebody who has been with your company for a while. This person will setup all the user accounts and distribute the duties, security wise, as you instruct.

The next thing you will need is somebody to take care of the inventory and other files. You will want a database expert on this. Most software programs will use sophisticated databases like Btrieve or Oracle. By having somebody who is familiar with database management, you will cut down on the number of problems you will have with running the system.

The next thing you will need to do is hire the staff that will be responsible for entering in the patient data and actually doing the billing. This is usually the most confusing area because most companies don’t know how many people they will need to hire. This is all going to depend on what kind of work load you expect. Most medical billing packages have done time studies on how long it takes to do a patient bill for a single patient. By multiplying this out by the number of patients you expect to bill in a day and then figuring and eight hour day for each data entry person, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how many people you will need to hire.

When hiring your billers, if possible, try to hire people who have both data entry experience and medical billing experience. Medical billing is not like most other forms of data entry. There are rules and regulations involved that don’t apply to just a regular data entry job. Billers will need knowledge of HIPAA regulations, NSF specifications, UB-92 procedures and a number of other things. Time spent having to look all this up is time wasted.

Putting together a medical billing staff can be an overwhelming task. But if you, as the manager or owner, take it one step at a time, starting with your network setup and working all the way up to finding qualified people to do your billing, you’ll have an excellent chance of having a company that runs like a well oiled machine.

Medical Billing – Distributing Duties

Medical Billing

Medical Billing – FB2 Record

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In our previous installment, we covered the FB1 record for medical billing of claims using NSF 3.01 specifications for electronic billing. In this installment we’re going to cover the FB2 record, which actually ties directly to the FB1 record.

While we did not go over the FB1 record in detail, we did briefly explain what information was transmitted as well as why the information was required to be sent. The FB1 record sent the four providers identification numbers along with some other information. The FB2 record sends three of the four providers addresses. We’ll explain shortly why only three. The most common question that gets asked is why all this information doesn’t just get transmitted in one record. To answer that question one first needs to know something about NSF 3.01 specifications and then the specific structure of each record. Since we didn’t go over the FB1 record in detail, now would be a good time to briefly go over the structure.


Medical Billing

The FB1 record primarily sends the providers names, positions 73 – 105, 121 – 153, 169 – 201, 217 – 249, UPIN numbers, positions 106 – 120, 154 – 168, 202 – 216, 265 – 279 and a few other pieces of uncommon information including patient ID, line item control number, place of service number, supervising provider NPI and of course the sequence number of the claim. The first 279 characters of the record are all filled with data.

Now, as you may or may not know, the NSF 3.01 specifications allocate 320 characters to each record. This was decided after determining that the information needed for the longest record, the FA0 record, would need to be 320 characters in length. Because they felt it would be easier to process claims if each record was the same length, they decided to make all the records 320 characters in length, even if they fell short. The way to compensate for this was to fill the remain characters with filler or blank spaces. This is not the same thing as leaving the record empty. At the end of the 320 characters, including blanks, a carriage return is inserted so that the payer would know that it is the end of the record. Because of this, if you take the 279 characters of the FB1 record and subtract them from the 320 total characters, you end up with 41 characters left over.

Now is where we have to look at the information for the FB2 record to understand why it couldn’t be included in the FB1 record even though it applied to the same three of four providers. The FB2 record transmits the following information

1. Patient ID of 17 characters. 2. Record Type of 3 characters. 3. Sequence number of 2 characters. 4. Line item control number of 17 characters. 5. Provider indicators of 2 characters times 3 providers, which equals 6 characters. 6. Provider address of 91 characters times 3 providers, which equals 273 characters.

If you add up all the above, you will see that it comes out to a lot more than the 42 characters that we had left in our FB1 record. This is why the FB2 record needed to be created.

As to why only three of the four providers are sent in this record, the reason is simple. This is commonly referred to as your supporting provider’s record. The info sent is for the ordering provider, referring provider and supervising provider. The rendering provider is not included here because he is the actual one rendering the service and his info was transmitted earlier.

Is it a messy system? Well, it certainly can be confusing. But for now, it’s all we have.

In our next installment on medical billing we’ll be looking at the GA0 record.

Medical Billing – FB2 Record

Medical Billing

Medical Billing Services

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Medical billing services are companies that take the pain of collecting money out of the doctor’s office. A good service will maximize a doctor’s receivables, while keeping their cash flow consistent. The key is choosing the right medical billing service.

A great service will submit insurance claims timely (preferably electronically), track the payments, follow up on unpaid claims and deal with all denials. They will not let any claim go unpaid.


Medical Billing

Representatives of the service will attend insurance company seminars, advise the doctor of changes in their field and provide them with regular financial reports. They should not only handle the billing needs, but should act as consultants for the doctor, advising of fee structure, coding practices, and other ways to improve the office.

An obvious way a doctor can save money by outsourcing his billing is in the savings he will generate thru payroll, equipment, software support, updates, postage, forms, etc.

Outsourcing medical billing produces more than cash savings. A good service can maximize what the doctor actually brings in by collecting more money than an in-house staff can. In most offices, the in-house staff does not have the time, or the knowledge to handle the problem claims and the doctor ends up not getting reimbursed anything for those services.

By outsourcing, a doctor is hiring a professional. Medical billing services have the expertise to submit claims accurately, collect on all claims, even those that have been denied by the insurance carrier. This helps the doctor’s patients by avoiding billing the patient for a claim that should have been paid by the insurance carrier.

A doctor should avoid choosing the wrong service by carefully checking references. A doctor should call several other doctors who might be using a particular medical billing service.

When a doctor interviews a potential service, what is his overall impression of the people who will be handling his income? During the interview, he should pay attention to how they answer his questions. Are they confident in their answers? Are they correct in their answers? Does what they offer make sense?

Like many other fields, there are good and bad billing services. But medical billing services can be a great resource for a doctor if they are careful to choose the right one.

Medical Billing Services

Medical Billing

Medical Billing – Data Problems

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About 98% of all the work done inside of a medical billing program involves data entry. Medical billing databases can reach massive proportions. A company with thousands of clients can have databases that are tens of gigabytes in size. Unfortunately, as databases grow, so do the problems. We’ll discuss some of the more common data entry and database problems and how to fix them or even avoid them, when possible.

One of the main causes of database problems is with the data entry personnel themselves. Each database program has a certain level of tolerance. Some are more tolerant than others. Those that are less forgiving can come to an abrupt halt when a data entry person types in data that is invalid. We’re not talking about typing in a wrong address. We’re talking about typing in alphanumeric characters in a numeric field. Most well made programs won’t allow this to happen. But the ones that do invite serious trouble because this invalid data can corrupt a database, especially if it happens often. At the very least, the program reading the data will get so confused that it will cease to operate correctly.


Medical Billing

The best way to avoid this problem is to train data entry personnel properly. Of course, it helps to spend the few extra bucks to get a program that is more forgiving of invalid data or, better yet, a program that won’t allow it to happen.

Another common and more serious problem is the size of the database. As was mentioned above, large companies can have databases that are very large, especially if they are dealing with thousands of patients. Most programs will have a separate database for patient files, doctor files and so on. So getting a good program is the first step to avoid problems. The reason a large database becomes a problem is because as data increases, along the way, data is also deleted and modified. This constant process causes the database to become unstable. Compressing it often, if the software has that option, is one way to prevent this from happening. Another thing you can do is break up your patient and other files. Maybe have all patients A to M in one database and all N to Z patients in another. Most software programs will give you a way to do this.

Another cause of data problems is the hard drive itself. As this drive is constantly being written to, over time, it will begin to wear down. Eventually it will start to lose data. When this happens, the integrity of your database will begin to deteriorate. Bad network connections will also cause data to be written poorly. This will also cause the data to corrupt.

By running regular backups, doing maintenance on your equipment, keeping the data entry process simple and by doing what you can to lighten the load on each database, you’ll be doing all that you can to prevent your database from turning into dust. The extra work, in the long run, will be more than worth it.

Medical Billing – Data Problems

Medical Billing

Medical Billing and Coding Pay Rate: What Is the Average Salary for Medical Billing and Coding?

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The old saying is true, money isn’t everything, but it is a lot in our world where you need to be able to buy food, clothes and some type of shelter on a regular basis. For people who need to find a career that will help them live the type of lifestyle they want to live there is little that is more important than finding a good salary.

If you are in this group you are not necessarily looking to get rich, though you wouldn’t fight it. What you need if you are in this group is just a good, solid salary that will allow you to pay the bills and have a little left over for everything else. This is possible with the career of someone who is in medical billing and coding.


Medical Billing

First, you have to realize that almost any job in the medical field is going to present opportunity with the emphasis on health care and health insurance today. Add to this the fact that medical facilities like to be paid regularly on the good work that they do and the billers and coders that do this work become even more important. Medical billing and coding is an important cog in the system that will allow everyone in the building to be paid and paid on time.

With this being said, it is important to realize the salary potential in the field you are going in to and in this field there is the potential to make a little money. Most people who are new in the medical billing and coding field will tell you that their starting salary was around ,000, some being a little higher and others being a little lower. This doesn’t mean that someone didn’t make more, but on average this is the starting ground for people that start out in medical billing and coding.

Those who are veterans in the field of medical billing and coding will tell you that they earn somewhere in the neighborhood of ,000, some even pushing the neighborhood of ,000. This may take several years and may be a hard level to reach in your area, but the possibility remains that you can earn this type of salary in the medical billing and coding field.

What you need to do is get every possible certification and license you can to make yourself as marketable and necessary as possible. It is therefore possible to make a very good living in the field of medical billing and coding.

Medical Billing and Coding Pay Rate: What Is the Average Salary for Medical Billing and Coding?

Medical Billing