The healthcare industry is one of the largest and fastest-growing in the world. Healthcare services are being provided to an ever increasing number of people through social programs and health insurance providers. These programs interact with doctors, clinics, and other healthcare providers to help pay for or subsidize the costs of patient procedures. Such procedures can involve dozens of people, from insurance agents to hospital administrators, and can intersect with many different local and national laws.To help manage and organize all this information, a system of codes has been developed to organize and abstract all the procedures a patient can receive so insurance agents and patients know what they’re being charged for, and other medical professionals can proceed with billing and collections on those services. A medical billing and coding specialist is a vital part of the healthcare business if you’re performing any complex health services.
A medical coding specialist is a healthcare professional with experience and knowledge regarding the different medical code standards, such as CPT, ICD-9, and HCPCS, which help categorize and price medical procedures. Procedures that range from eye examinations to heart surgery are pulled from transcribed medical records, coded, and sent to a medical billing expert. Although medical coding and medical billing are different tasks, they can often be carried out by the same person, especially in smaller healthcare environments. A medical billing specialist is responsible for organizing the coded procedures and billing the various parties correctly. Together, a medical billing and coding pro is primarily responsible for making sure your business and operation can smoothly handle all financial accounts.