A career as a medical office specialist will enable you to apply the knowledge you've learned not only within the health care field, but with general physicians and even specialists as well.
Whether you're a behind the scenes worker or manning the front desk, you are the person who is responsible for making the practice run effectively. The training required for this career should not be intimidating. Here are some of the skills you'll need in order to thrive as a medical office specialist:
- Strong organizational skills
- Excellent computer skills
- Filing skills to manage patient information and charts
- Basic accounting abilities
- Ability to handle insurance information and co-payments
- Medical claims processing experience
- Skilled at making appointments and referrals
Some Job Titles in the Field
Working for a health care provider, you might find yourself processing claims for the practice in your role as a medical office specialist. This is a very important part of any practice, because claims are often submitted directly to the insurance carrier. Your job is to make sure that the claims are accurate and submitted in a timely manner. You might also serve as a medical coding specialist, ensuring that each claim submitted has the proper insurance code assigned to it, according to the procedure performed.
As a medical transcriptionist, you would be responsible for transcribing a physician's detailed notes and specified plan of treatment for a patient, or even more frequently now, transcribing from recorded notes. A medical office specialist also helps manage the front desk of an office, which may involve scheduling initial and follow-up appointments for patients in the practice's calendar. Your assistance may also be needed in the back office to make sure a patient's personal information and insurance coverage is up to date. You might also be asked to help with managing and/or arranging referrals if patients need to see a specialist. The fact that there are so many opportunities and variety in jobs, depending on the practice involved, means that you'll have more job prospects if your skill levels are high.
Other Key Skills
Within each of these job descriptions, the more knowledge you have in the field, the better your chances are for employment. Key providers will nearly always look for the following knowledge or experience:
- Basic understanding of medical terminology
- Knowledge of medical coding
- Office billing experience
- Familiarity with different insurance plans and co-payments
- Pleasant phone voice
- Ability to remain calm and focused especially when dealing with difficult patients as well as insurance company representatives.
