Medical Biller: What is the cost of hiring?

Why hire a medical biller?

The need for new staff can affect your existing team and service. A great medical biller hire can help your business by getting insurance to approve more procedures so patients can receive better care. A medical biller might also get lower rates for patients.

• Lower health care costs
• Improve patient care
• Increase number of procedures

Deciding between a full-time vs freelance medical biller

Medical billers are often hired on as full-time employees at medical offices, hospitals and dental offices due to consistent work. If your practice requires assistance to regularly handle billing issues, insurance claims and daily billing administrative duties, hiring a full-time employee is a good option. 

A freelance medical biller would be considered a good addition to your practice if you have overflow work you need assistance with on a one-time or temporary basis. Your business may also benefit from the services of a freelance medical biller if your payroll budget only allows for a certain amount of hours per month as opposed to full time. 

What are the types of medical billers?

Medical billers work for hospitals, private medical practices and dental offices. While medical billers generally have the same duties, there are some variations to the job. Here are the most common types of medical biller positions. 

• Medical biller: A medical biller performs multiple duties that include creating invoices for patients, contacting insurance carriers, coordinating payments and entering patient information. Medical billers also discuss payment plan options with patients when offered by medical and dental offices. 
• Medical billing collections specialist: Medical billing collections specialists focus on collecting current and past due payments from patients and insurance companies. They work with parties to develop payment arrangements on past due accounts, and they use electronic payment retrieval systems to process payments. 
• Medical billing supervisor: A medical billing supervisor oversees the medical billing department. In addition to supervisory duties, billing supervisors assist medical billers with daily tasks of entering patient financial data into electronic databases, collecting payments and coordinating payments with insurance companies. 

Where to find medical billers

To find the right medical biller for your business, consider trying a few different recruiting strategies. 

• Recruit from within. If your health care office is in need of additional billing department staff, consider offering the opportunity to a current office or admin clerk who is already familiar with the job. They may be looking to explore other areas of the health care field, and their current employment allows for easy placement in the new position. 
  
• Post flyers on bulletin boards. Is your practice located in a busy office building? If so, posting flyers on common area bulletin boards is a good way to spread the word about your position. Employees from other offices can pass the information on to others, or there may be someone working in the building who’s interested in finding a new position. 
  
• Post your job online. Try posting your medical biller job on Indeed to find and attract quality medical biller candidates. 

Skills to look for in a great Medical Biller

A great medical biller candidate will have the following skills and attributes as well as work experience that reflects:

• Basic software skills
• Telephone skills
• Basic math skills
• Communication with patient and health insurance company
• Team Work
• Patience with healthcare system

Writing a medical biller job description

A thoughtful description is important to finding quality medical biller candidates. A medical biller job description includes a compelling summary of the role, a detailed list of duties and responsibilities and the required and preferred skills for the position.

When writing your medical biller job description, consider including some or all of the following keywords to improve the visibility of your job posting . These are the most popular search terms leading to clicks on medical biller jobs, according to Indeed data. 

• Medical billing
• Medical biller
• Medical billing specialist
• Medical coding
• Medical office 
• Medical billing coding
• Billing
• Medical
• Remote work from home
• Healthcare

Interviewing medical biller candidates

Strong candidates for medical biller positions will be confident answering questions regarding:

• The health insurance industry
• Appealing denied claims
• Persistence

Need help coming up with interview questions? See our list of medical biller interview questions for examples (with sample answers).