Find Good Medical Billing Schools

Search for Medical Billing and Coding Schools

Search for Medical Billing Schools or a Medical Coding School near you. What to considering when selecting Medical Billing and Coding Schools.

If you are visiting this page your most likely considering a career in medical billing and coding and understand the importance of having a good education and job opportunities it will present.

Where to Find
A good place to start searching for good medical billing schools or medical coding school is your local community college or vocational school. These schools offer a great educational value for getting into medical billing and coding. If you live in an area that does not offer access to good medical billing schools, your best alternative may be medical billing schools online.

Our partners at Career School Now offer a quick and simple way to find reputable medical billing and coding schools:

The minimum educational credential for medical billing and coding is certification. This typically takes the least amount of time to complete. From there are the diploma program and the associates program – which typically takes about 2 years to complete.

A certificate program will typically take 9 months to a year to complete depending on the program and coding covered. Anything longer than that for a certificate program and they are just trying to milk the students. You want to get completed as soon as possible the get employed and start making money.

When considering medical billing and coding schools the typical concerns are:

  • What to look for when selecting medical billing and coding schools.
  • Where can you find good medical billing schools or medical coding school.
  • How do you pay for medical coding and billing schools.

An Investment
Think of your education as an investment in You. When considering a medical billing school, cost is important – but it’s not the only consideration. You want to make sure the courses offered are from an accredited and reputable organization.

If you work full time and just can’t give up your job to pursue and education right now – consider taking online courses. That way you can work towards your educational goals in a flexible way while still earning an income.

Paying For It
How to pay for Medical Billing School or Medical Coding School. Learn about the different funding sources to pay for medical coding and billing schools.

Medical Billing Schools – Medical Coding School

What To Look For

Ask Questions
Investigate the medical billing schools you are considering. This may include taking to students and faculty to get a first-had feeling of the program and how engaged the students and instructors are. You can get a feel real fast just by the answers to simple questions on the school or program. If everybody is just going through the motions and shows little or no enthusiasm, ask yourself if this is where you want to be.

Career Placement
Many career colleges offer career placement programs to assist students in getting a job upon graduation. This could be in the form of an internship with a local employer. Before enrolling in a medical billing and coding school program, check out their career placement services – or visit them yourself. See what their success rate is for placing students and what kind of resources and relationships they have with potential employers. After all that’s why you are going to the trouble of getting an education – to get a job.

Realistic Instruction
You’ll want to get an idea of how much “real world” experience medical billing schools will offer. Are they going to present realistic scenario’s or just walk through a boring PowerPoint presentation showing all the forms you’ll need to be familiar with.

You want a program that’s going to show you how and where to look up ICD and CPT codes, fill out a CMS 1500 form, how to read and EOB, superbill, etc. Instructors who just talk about it doesn’t help you a lot.

Realistic hands on training is important to preparing you for a real job.

Accreditation
One way to distinguish medical billing and coding schools is to see if they are accredited. Accreditation insures a school meets certain minimum standards. This isn’t always the case as there are many medical billing schools that offer a quality education. But accreditation can be a factor to potential employers. This is probably more important for those pursuing coding credentials than those just sticking to medical billing.

There are many different accreditation agencies so make sure it’s a reputable one before committing. Watch out for “diploma mills” that have low standards and don’t require the students to do anything meaningful. Their accreditation agencies have impressive official sounding names but are usually created by the bogus school themselves.

Training Options
What to look for when considering your medical billing and coding training options. A look at some of the different training options such as Associates, Diploma, and Certificate programs.

Online Medical Billing Training
Medical billing training online – Online medical billing training. Learn the advantages and disadvantages of medical billing training online. See the course outline for one of the most comprehensive online medical billing courses.

Online Medical Billing Degree
What are the available options when considering an online medical billing degree? What to look for in a reputable medical billing and coding training online degree program.

Medical Billing & Coding Schools Online
8 Questions to Ask when selecting a traditional or online medical billing and coding school and spending thousands. There are options to the more traditional programs that can save you a lot of money.

Free Medical Billing and Coding Training
What do you get for nothing? Hold on to your credit card! Learn free creative alternatives to traditional training.

Medical Billing and Coding Certification
What organizations offer Medical Billing and Coding Certification? Learn what certification is and the benefits to being a certified Medical Billing Specialist or Certified Professional Coder.

Online Medical Coding Schools
Many people consider online medical coding schools because they wish to obtain marketable skills and become certified as a medical coder. Online medical coding training has made it possible to learn at you own pace, at a time convenient for you, and generally for a lower cost than traditional campus programs.

Strong Need for Billing Specialists
A career as a medical billing specialist has become very popular in recent years fueled by the explosive growth in the healthcare field. Many medical billing schools – both online and brick-and-mortar – have been popping up around the country. Whether your goal is to obtain a certificate, a diploma, or an associate’s degree in an educational program in the field of medical billing, there is a recommended approach. Not all of these schools offer a quality education, so it is important to weed out the frauds from the reputable institutions.

As mentioned above, a certificate in a medical billing program should take less than a year to complete. If a school is offering a program longer than this, it may just be doing so to justify charging a higher tuition. Check out the medical billing school curriculum and compare it to the shorter-term programs to determine whether the extra time and money is justified. A diploma program should take longer than a certificate program, so compare these two for differences in coursework.

In general, an associate’s degree program should take two years, and this is no different for a program in medical billing. The curriculum should include some general education courses in addition to medical billing classes. This enables students to graduate with a well-rounded education so they can communicate well, perform basic math functions, and make the logical decisions required in most jobs. If an associate’s degree program includes only courses in medical billing, it may be overkill.

Vocational & Community Colleges
Vocational schools and community colleges are adding medical billing programs to their offerings, so look there for a program. Credibility is not usually an issue with those types of schools, which means one less worry of getting ripped of for students. If the community college is outside the county where you live, the tuition may be higher than an in-county school. Ask whether the school participates in chargebacks in which out of county students can attend for the in-county rate simply by completing some extra paperwork.

If no schools within commuting distance offer a medical billing program, an online medical billing school is a viable alternative and becoming very popular. However, there are many more unknowns when attending a completely online school. First, look for brick-and-mortar schools that offer distance or online education in medical billing. If there are none that match your educational needs, online medical billing schools may be the only option. Research the school to make sure it is legitimate and talk to some medical billing faculty members and current students to get a feel for their enthusiasm about the program.

Look For Quality
Accreditation is an important thing for medical billing schools to have. There are several accrediting agencies in the field of medical billing and coding. Most accreditations apply to the coding aspect of the job but knowing that a school is accredited provides assurance that it meets minimum quality standards. Look for recognition by the Distance Education Training Council and the Better Business Bureau. Some schools just churn out diplomas without providing students with a meaningful education. These are the schools to avoid, as they take tuition payments each semester and offer little in return.

Good medical billing schools provide not only a strong foundation in the field, but also ways to apply it. Medical billers spend their days dealing with diagnosis and treatment codes, working with medical claim software, how to post payments, and completing CMS 1500 paper claim forms. Students should learn how to do each of these things in their medical billing program. They should be presented with realistic scenarios and taught how to handle them, not just provided a Power Point presentation to read and information to memorize.

The general rule of thumb is that a long-standing school will probably be reputable. Be wary of medical billing schools that have been around only a short period. Any bad reputation may not have caught up with them yet. Check to see if the school has a physical address and how many teachers it employs compared to the number of students who attend. Look at graduation rate, but also job placement to determine how many of those graduates were employed within a certain time after graduating. Medical billing schools with active career placement services are worth the extra investment.

Textbooks & Fees
Tuition charged by accredited medical billing schools can range from $3,000 to $15,000, depending on the type and length of program. Examine the tuition to make sure it doesn’t include hidden fees or require long-term commitments. If the cost of textbooks is not built into the program cost, find out which textbooks are required and how much they will cost. Also, identify whether students must pay extra fees to access any medical billing software used in the courses. If the desire is to get a job with an insurance company or hospital, look for a program that also includes medical coding courses.