Medical Biller Salary Expectations

As a person who’s looking at a possible career shift into the healthcare information management field, you’re probably wondering how much your take-home salary would be once you start work. As an entry-level worker, you’d expect to receive just enough from a career in medical billing, although you have to take some things into consideration as well. You have to factor in that the location, responsibilities involved and the relevance of training you received play an important role in your salary offer. As confirmed by a survey conducted by the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC) in 2011, the salary range of medical transcriptionist varies depending on the aforementioned factors.

One thing that medical billers can get excited about is that the earning potential of medical billers goes beyond the minimum wage set for their jurisdiction. And it only makes sense as medical billers have to undergo rigorous training before they’re good to go and work without supervision. Medical billers deal with sensitive financial/billing issues and they have to be not just familiar but also adept with healthcare documentation. They also play a crucial role in ensuring that the medical provider is complying with state rules and third-party agreements. 

Medical Billing Job Duties: An Overview  

Medical billers are clerks that process the payments of clients and insurance providers for the healthcare services delivered to the patients. Since most patient records have been migrated to a centralized electronic database, medical billers should know the various codes used to identify the services rendered, as well as the type of medications prescribed, diagnosis and the type of insurance product a patient is entitled to receive. Most importantly, a medical biller has to know the right way of computing for the percentage of the payment amount that the client is supposed to pay from their own pocket and the payment amount that will be handled by the insurance provider.

Sample Average Salary for Medical Billers per State

According to Indeed.com, the average salary for medical billers and related positions (e.g. medical claims specialist, medical records field technician, medical billing collections specialist) range between $31,000 and $49,000 in California. In Chicago, the salary range between $14,000 and $44,000. In New York, certified medical billers earn a starting salary of $17,000 up to as much as $50,000. The salary forecasts are even higher in websites like Medicalbillingandcodingu.org and Salary.com, with estimates of up to $57,334 annually. Pacific states such as California, Washington and Alaska and widely-affluent New England states are known to proffer higher rates for medical billers, while Southern states where the cost of living is usually lower have lower annual salary rates for these professionals.  

In any case, how well you did on your medical billing training and how well you perform your job can make a difference in how your salary rate would be assessed. Remember that it isn’t so hard to gain a step up the ladder of success so long as you keep an honest and diligent mindset while on the job. 

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ICD-10 Spurs Medical Billing and Coding Training

The gears are engaged and the wheels are turning for the implementation on Oct. 1, 2013 of ICD-10, otherwise known as the International Classification of Diseases 10th Edition, the “bible” that all medical coders need to follow in diagnosis coding and reporting. And despite urgent appeals by the American Medical Association (AMA) to Congress to stop the implementation of ICD-10, updates of ICD-9 (the current and soon-to-be-replaced code manual) have for all intents and purposes, stopped.

Once ICD-10 is phased in, coders will not only need to master a much wider medical terminology, but will also have to work more closely with doctors on the new codes. Significantly, medical billing and coding training will need to be updated for many schools.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is already focused on ICD-10 and just recently, under authorization by the World Health Organization (WHO), it updated its ICD-10-CM Official Guidelines for Coding and Reporting for 2012.

The proximity of the changeover has medical coders scrambling for medical billing and coding training and resources, and training institutions such as Meditec.com are more than happy to provide the coursework.
However, all’s not well with the transition.

The American Medical Association (AMA) is strongly urging Congress to stop the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's implementation of the ICD-10 code set. The appeal, contained in a letter, also urged the lawmakers to call on stakeholders to find a replacement for ICD-9, the current code set.

Once implemented, ICD-10 will require doctors and their office staff to deal with a staggering 68,000 codes, five times more than the current 13,000 codes of ICD-9.
AMA contended in no uncertain terms in its letter that ICD-10 is devoid of any direct benefit to individual patient care and will only hugely burden medical practice. It also pointed out that the implementation will only compete with other expensive transitions involving quality and health information technology (IT) reporting programs.

In the letter, AMA CEO James L. Madara, MD, said that derailing ICD-10 and finding "an appropriate replacement for ICD-9 will help to keep adoption of [electronic health records] and physician participation in quality and health IT programs on track and reduce costly burdens on physician practices."

Whether AMA is right or not in its protest, the transition to ICD-10 is a major industry undertaking. Meditec.com, which also provides medical transcription training and pharmacy technician classes, offers medical billing and coding training to those who want to take advantage of this suddenly-much-in-demand career.

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