Medical billing and coding service does require you to have certain requirements to give you the best chance to succeed, such as medical coding certification. A background in health industry is helpful, including your experience in Doctor’s office, but in essence this type of home business can be done by someone who is accountable, self-motivated and possess good ability to maintain schedule with high attention to details.
What is it?
In essence, you offer services to both physicians and patients: You bill patients, handle insurance claims, and help doctors to manage and monitor their practices through offering opinions and information regarding the practices. You do need to remind patients for their late payments, following up insurance claims, providing reports to doctors and patients, patients information upkeep (including data entry to the medical billing software,) and answer all inquiries from doctors and patients regarding finances and billing.
Prospects
The demand for this service is huge. However, you should expect tough competition due to somewhat low barrier to entry. Nevertheless, there are still great rooms to establish your share in the market – it’s a high supply and high demand business right now.
The pay is good; according to About.com, you can make between USD20,000 and USD100,000 annually. With a startup cost ranging from USD3,000 to USD5,000 (according to PowerHomeBiz.com,) this is a lucrative home business, indeed.
Who is it for?
If your aspiration is to work at home on a part-time basis, this business is for you. You do need the ability to manage a real business – you knowledge about medial billing and coding is just the tip of the iceberg; you need to be able to wear many hats: Business marketing, finances, and management to name a few.
What’s required to start right?
So, are you interested to start a home based medical billing and coding business? Here is the checklist of requirements to get you started:
- USD3,000 – USD5,000 in capital investment
- Business license.
- Certification and education on medical billing and coding.
- Business fixtures and equipments: A laptop or PC, printer, fax, Internet access, accounting and billing software, office supplies, and furniture.
- Quality medical billing and coding software that will cost you starting from USD500 to several thousands of dollars.
- Reference and books related to medical billing and coding
- Marketing budget to advertise your service, both online and off line; don’t forget to set up a website and social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter and the rest) to get the word out about your medical billing business.
It’s better than selling widgets on online store!
Making money online and online business are typical choices for those decide to work from home (like me!) However, if you are passionate about doing business in the health industry, want to specialise in a niche, and eager to establish your footing on both online and off line business, medical billing and coding could be very well a great business opportunity for you.
You definitely has a better chance to succeed with this home based business opportunity, rather than selling stuffs in online stores (and Facebook, CafePress, etc.) that 1 million others do. Your thoughts, please.
Ivan Widjaya
Home based medical billing and coding business