Oh brother - careers in medical billing?
My colleague Ian C. MacMillan sent along a tidbit that definitely bears thinking about. It turns out that young people can actually build a career in medical billing. Yes, just finding the right codes for procedures and putting them on paper forms is enough to keep a full-time person busy! Not only that, but there are even dedicated educational programs to train people to do this. Providers actually offer degrees in Medical Coding and Billing. The mere existence of a need for such a degree does provide evidence that the system has serious inefficiencies, doesn’t it?
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- Posted: Wednesday, August 05, 2009
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You’re taking this a bit too far. The coding is used for several purposes, including tracking what was done, which is data needed to calculate the cost of services. It’s not a whole lot different than capturing the inputs into a manufacturing process, it’s just a whole lot more complex.
Since these are services, bar codes are not possible. The coding is done in the billing software, not on paper forms. Paper billing is unusual, and for Medicare/Medicaid, virtually prohibited.
Are there serious inefficiencies? Yep. I’ve been in healthcare for 30 years, and I’ve seen it more times than I care to count - people from outside the industry really don’t grasp how complex healthcare is in real life.
Peter Lucash
