What Is Medical Billing?
Medical Billing has turned around in a big way nowadays. There was a time when the patient used to go to doctor, get the treatment for any ailment and pay the doctor’s bill. Until few years back, medical insurance was significantly complicated; it was a rare event, the doctor had to raise the paper bill towards his treatment charges and submit it to the private, Medicare or Medicaid insurance provider. We are much aware of the fact that such paper bills could get lost very easily. Anyways, those days are history now, yet there are a few doctors who still believe in the orthodox procedures and use paper bills for their treatment charges. Most of the doctors have today started using the latest technologies and begun raising electronic Medical Bills to their patients for the treatments provided by them.
Electronic Medical Billing is a paperless billing process; wherein the bill is printed out after making the entries related to the patient’s treatment in the computer system and handed over to the patient by his doctor. Such electronic Medical Billing incorporates all the related information like, the insurance provider’s data, your detailed treatment charges, medicines and other incidental expenses incurred by the clinic while extending your treatments. All these information are essential for claiming the medical expenses incurred by the clinic, from the patient’s medical insurance providers. Read the rest of this entry »
Medical Billing Terms and Medical Coding Terminology
Those in medical billing and coding careers have a terminology of unique terms and abbreviations. Below are some of the more frequently used Medical Billing terms and acronyms. Also included is some medical coding terminology.
Aging – Refers to the unpaid insurance claims or patient balances that are due past 30 days. Most medical billing software’s have the ability to generate a separate report for insurance aging and patient aging. These reports typically list balances by 30, 60, 90, and 120 day increments.
Appeal – When an insurance plan does not pay for treatment, an appeal (either by the provider or patient) is the process of formally objecting this judgment. The insurer may require additional documentation.
Applied to Deductible – Typically seen on the patient statement. This is the amount of the charges, determined by the patients insurance plan, the patient owes the provider. Many plans have a maximum annual deductible that once met is then covered by the insurance provider.
Assignment of Benefits – Insurance payments that are paid to the doctor or hospital for a patients treatment. Read the rest of this entry »
Democracy at Its Best – The Swiss Style!
‘Government of the people, by the people and for the people’, it was Lincoln on democracy. The democracy that he defined prevails in his mother country, US. Thanks to the US constitution which plays the balancing act between the three premiere institutions of democracy, the legislature, the executive and the judiciary in the US with a series of powers given to these institutions to control each other, known as ‘checks and balances’. Though the President of US is said to be elected directly by the people of US, it is an electoral college that ultimately decides who is to become the President. Election to the upper house, meant for the Senates is held once in two years; similarly members to the House of Representatives are elected by the people periodically. The democracy that prevails in the US is an indirect form of democracy through the elected representatives of the people.
In India, considered to be the largest democracy of the world with a population of more than 120 million, people are delegating their power to their representatives through the election process. The elected members are sometimes participating in the voice voting and in rare cases involving important issues as well as electing the President or the Vice President of India they exercise their vote in a secret ballot. Though illiteracy plays its havoc in having a healthy democracy in India, by and large, it is successful. Read the rest of this entry »
