What Are the Different Jobs for a Medical Billing and Coding Specialist?

A medical billing and coding specialist makes sure patients and their insurance companies are billed correctly for physician services. Some medical billing specialist jobs are found in a hospital or doctor's office setting. Others may work for an agency that outsources work for a number of medical clinics. Some medical coding specialists may be employed by insurance agencies, where they will verify the accuracy of claims before they are processed. People in this career field often work as freelancers and many work from home.

After a patient is seen by a physician, a medical billing and coding specialist may be responsible for entering the correct code on the invoice and billing that person for services rendered. As such, many positions exist in hospitals and doctor's offices with a large number of physicians. Positions could also be found in long-term care centers or physical rehabilitation facilities.

Small clinics with only one or two doctors may not have enough work for a medical billing and coding specialist to do on a full-time basis. For this reason, there are agencies that do this work for a variety of different physicians. These medical coding agencies hire workers to process claims and are typically located off-site.

Insurance companies have a stake in making sure medical claims are accurate, so many health insurance carriers hire a medical billing and coding specialist to review documents. When employed in this capacity, the medical billing specialist may check incoming claims for accuracy. If errors are discovered, the medical coding specialist will usually work with the hospital or doctor's office to correct the mistakes so the claims are not overpaid.

Many opportunities for telecommuting exist for people in this line of work. Some workers may be self-employed freelancers who solicit work from physicians on an as-needed basis. Others may occasionally work with attorneys to help them decipher medical codes on documents related to personal injury cases. A freelance medical billing and coding specialist could also help ease the workload of a specialist employed at an insurance company in the event that the carrier receives an unusually large amount of claims.

Whether self-employed or hired as an employee, it is often possible for a medical billing and coding specialist to work from home. Some workers may need to report to a central location from time to time in order to receive assignments, while others may be given work via the Internet. A quiet home office and computer with specialized software are normally needed to perform this work from a remote location.