Do I have enough education to start my own medical billing business at home without any previous billing experience?

by Diana
(Kentucky)

I graduated from U.S.Career Institute with a 99% grade average. I really want to start my own medical billing business at home. The school tells me I have enough education to do this. I have never worked in a medical office of any kind. I have recently been looking at medical billing forums and some say that schools like this are not enough and some say they are.I am more scared and confused than ever.I really was hoping I could do it from home.I don't know if I am making a big deal out of nothing or its just the fear of the unknown. There isn't anyone I can talk to around here close that has their own medical billing business.I was wondering if your daily duties are all mostly covered in your education or if there are things that you have to do that you may not know or can't do? any advice or help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you Diana

Response:

Diana,

WOW - you obviously know your billing with such a high grade average.

I don’t know how much “real world” experience your coursework involved but I would recommend getting some experience if possible. I didn’t take any formal courses in billing - just learned on the job. I was very fortunate to get experience working from home for a billing service from home - I did everything by logging onto their server.

It really helped me to understand what needed to be done and get comfortable with how things worked before striking out on my own. Otherwise I would have been overwhelmed and more likely to fail. One of the things about operating a billing service is that the clients expect me to get their billing going quickly - they are not happy if claims aren’t getting paid because the biller is trying to figure out how to set up their software or get claims accepted by the clearinghouse, etc.

Working helped me know how to do things like deal with clients, get set up with a clearinghouse, efficient ways to send patient statements, posting payments, dealing with insurance companies, working aging, etc.

By the way - the forums you mentioned are a great way to learn about the issues billing business owners deal with.

Hope this helps answer you questions - feel free to comment if you need me to explain further or better.

good luck!

Thanks,

Gina