Can I Operate a Billing Business From Another Country?

by Karen
(California)

I am currently studying medical billing and coding in the USA, but I wanted to move to another country. I want to move to Guatemala and put a medical billing and coding business there after getting some experience here, and have clients from the USA. Can that be done or not?

Response:

Karen,

I think as long as you have an internet connection, a phone, a fax, and a computer you have the most important tools needed for a billing service. Actually with scanning now and efax services you could probably get by without a fax.

I think the challenges you would have is convincing a provider to outsource to a service located far away. Of course that's what some of the bigger billing services are doing anyway - outsourcing the nuts-and-bolts work overseas.

If you can get past having a physical presence or being available to meet with your clients face-to-face than where you are located isn't a big deal. I have had clients located in another state and we handled everything via phone and internet and it worked fine.

One thing you may want to investigate is handling, transmitting, and storing patient records in another country - especially with respect to HIPAA. You may want to checkout the HIPAA Survival Guide to see if they have any guidance. I'm not sure how to answer that. With electronic records that may not be as big an issue as long as they are handled and transmitted securely.

One thing I really recommend to anyone getting into billing is to first get some experience billing in-house for a provider - or working for a billing service - before starting a billing service. There are so many things that are learned by doing actually billing that aren't really covered in a course or book - or that have to be experienced to be understood.

Thanks for visiting our site. Hope this helps answer your question.