Mistakes Made in Medical Billing and Coding

Medical billing and coding errors are a serious ordeal in the medical world. Mistakes can cause confusion for the physician’s staff, insurance company, and patient. Accuracy is very important in the medical world.

Mistakes made in medical billing and coding not only effect the worker, but patients as well. If the person doing a doctor’s medical billing and coding codes the case wrong the insurance company’s system will not pay. It will usually automatically deny the claim. This is a very common problem in medical coding and many blame poor training for errors like these. The medical coding system is so intricate that many who do it daily do not understand it.

It is very confusing. Many patients do not even understand their itemized bills when they receive them because of all the coding on it. A medical biller or coder needs to be as accurate as possible from the initial filing to keep from having rejections or denials. If the employee is properly trained then mistakes should happen less and help the doctor’s office collect the money owed to them.

Most offices only hire certified medical billers and coders. These people have completed training courses and are very knowledgeable in their field. Though sometimes to help a friend or save money a doctor will hire someone that is not trained in the medical billing and coding field. Though this seems ok at the time it will usually back fire on them due to all of the mistakes that a less knowledgeable person will make. The doctor would be better off paying top dollar for medical billing firm who is an expert in medical billing because they will make fewer mistakes, resulting in a sizable increase in revenue.

View all Articles by: Melissa Clark, CCS-P