We sat down with American College of Healthcare and Technology’s Medical Billing and Coding instructor about some things that will help students succeed in this course. Our Medical Billing and Coding program is an 8-month program at our Riverside and Huntington Park campuses.
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You need to have the dedication to spend time studying your books. It helps to do research on coding to help you improve on it, and dedicate to putting time into this outside of class as well as your time at the American College of Healthcare and Technology.
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Have ambition. You have to want to learn. In this class, it is a lot of working out of the book to learn and memorize the codes. You really have to want this because if you choose to ignore the book or try to do it only halfway, there’s no way for someone to succeed in this field.
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Be detail oriented. You always want to be organized and pay attention to every detail in a report. You are responsible for the office to be reimbursed; you need to make sure you are correct in your codes so there isn’t a mistake.
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Be assertive. You will need to be assertive in making sure your office gets paid by the insurer or the patient. They may be reluctant to pay a bill, but you need to be assertive to make sure the money is paid.
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Be comfortable with talking to people. While you will be working a lot on a computer, inputting codes, you also will be spending a lot of time talking to other people. You will be talking to patients about their bill, doctors, and nurses about what a report is talking about, and insurance companies. Communication will be one of the most important skills to succeed.
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Know your medical terminology. Knowing medical terminology is essential for this field. The doctor isn’t going to be putting this into Layman’s terms so you need to know the terminology to make sure you are getting it right.
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Know your anatomy. Along with knowing terminology, you need to know anatomy as well. Knowing the bones, the organs and the muscles are essential to coding properly. Not knowing part of the anatomy can cause you to input the wrong code and the office may not get paid because of the mistake.
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Have computer skills. Nearly everything you are going to do working is going to be done electronically. From payments to records even the reports from the doctors, nearly everything is done electronically. Having and working on your computer skills make your life a lot easier.
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Be confident in yourself. You need to be confident in yourself. You are not going to have someone there to check to see if you are putting in the right codes. You need to make sure that you are putting everything in properly.
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You are going to be working with a lot of people and most likely in a doctor’s office. You need to make sure you are professional with the people you will be working with. You will be working with patients, doctors and insurance companies. Professionalism will be one of the most important skills for you in this field.