Thursday, April 13, 2006
Finding the Right Medical Transcription School For You
COMPETENCY-BASED
Finding the right medical transcription school may be the most important decision you will make in your career. This may seem like a bold statement - especially since, at first glance all medical transcription schools look pretty much the same. But nothing could be further from the truth. There are really only a few medical transcription schools that are truly competency-based. That is, schools that prepare you to get a job upon graduation.
DIPLOMA MILLS
Oh, don’t worry, there are plenty of “diploma mills” out there. The problem is that in this business, a diploma is not what matters. The only thing that matters is whether you can perform the work. And the only way to learn to do the work is to enroll in a top-flight medical transcription school. Taking shortcuts on a fast track to a diploma is a total waste of time and money. Too many people find this out the hard way — and it is a very costly mistake, indeed.
MYTH OF NO OPPORTUNITY
Unfortunately, most people who make that mistake become completely discouraged and disillusioned and just give up, assuming that there is no real opportunity for a career in medical transcription. When the reality is that there are hundreds of unfilled medical transcription job vacancies every day of the year. Right now the medical transcription industry is literally begging for new talent. But medical transcription companies need people that can produce, not people that require a lot of handholding and mentoring.
CONVENIENCE
One aspect you will want to consider in finding the right MTS for you is convenience. Some vocational and community colleges offer MT programs. The obvious challenge there is travel time and arranging your schedule to fit theirs. One great benefit for going the home-study route is that you can study whenever YOUR schedule allows. For many stay-at-home moms, this is a very, very big advantage.
Medical Billing Services
Medical billing services are companies that take the pain of collecting money out of the doctor’s office. A good service will maximize a doctor’s receivables, while keeping their cash flow consistent. The key is choosing the right medical billing service.
A great service will submit insurance claims timely (preferably electronically), track the payments, follow up on unpaid claims and deal with all denials. They will not let any claim go unpaid.
Representatives of the service will attend insurance company seminars, advise the doctor of changes in their field and provide them with regular financial reports. They should not only handle the billing needs, but should act as consultants for the doctor, advising of fee structure, coding practices, and other ways to improve the office.
An obvious way a doctor can save money by outsourcing his billing is in the savings he will generate thru payroll, equipment, software support, updates, postage, forms, etc.
Outsourcing medical billing produces more than cash savings. A good service can maximize what the doctor actually brings in by collecting more money than an in-house staff can. In most offices, the in-house staff does not have the time, or the knowledge to handle the problem claims and the doctor ends up not getting reimbursed anything for those services.
By outsourcing, a doctor is hiring a professional. Medical billing services have the expertise to submit claims accurately, collect on all claims, even those that have been denied by the insurance carrier. This helps the doctor’s patients by avoiding billing the patient for a claim that should have been paid by the insurance carrier.
A doctor should avoid choosing the wrong service by carefully checking references. A doctor should call several other doctors who might be using a particular medical billing service.
When a doctor interviews a potential service, what is his overall impression of the people who will be handling his income? During the interview, he should pay attention to how they answer his questions. Are they confident in their answers? Are they correct in their answers? Does what they offer make sense?
Like many other fields, there are good and bad billing services. But medical billing services can be a great resource for a doctor if they are careful to choose the right one.
Fighting A Virus With Antibiotics
Have you ever taken your child to the doctor and been told he has a cold or the flu and the doctor prescribes antibiotics? We often think the doctor knows best so we dash out of the doctor's office to the nearest drug store and purchase the medication hoping our child will improve swiftly. There's only one problem. Antibiotics are ineffective against viruses and doctors know this. So, why do they prescribe them?
As a former health care worker, I've seen countless parents bring their children in with complaints of runny noses, fever, congestion. They insist on the doctor giving them an antibiotic because this is the only defense we generally think will "make us well". Doctors are human too. So, to appease their clients, they often write the prescription and give the kid a sucker and a super hero sticker and send them on their way. When in actuality the only thing that's super about it is the bugs we are assisting in mutating to one day be the super-bacteria of them all- resistant to everything we have to combat them. Yes, there are bacteria around today that are resistant to almost every form of antibiotic we have. In other words, there are some bacterial infections that there's no cure for.
Even as consumers, we purchase antibacterial soaps, lotions and other products that claim to be mega germ fighters. Why? Are the germs we encounter on a daily basis deadly enough to illicit this type of constant safeguard? Or is this another way of exposing relatively harmless bacteria to a product so many times until it is forced to mutate into something bigger, stronger and way more powerful.
Word to the wise - stop abusing antibiotics. If your child has a cold or any type of viral infection, treat the symptoms. There is no cure for the common cold, flu or other viral infections. Treating the symptoms includes: medications to reduce fever, decongestants, antihistamines for runny noses and Grandma's homemade chicken soup. A virus has to pretty much run it's course. Alleviating some of the symptoms so that the child feels better during the course of the virus is the only true remedy.
As far as the antibacterial products that are saturating our market today, the regular products work just as well unless you have some sort of bacterial skin infection or other reason to utilize topical antibacterial products.
Remember, always take antibiotics exactly as directed. Misuse can be just as bad as not using at all. These are powerful drugs that have saved countless lives. Let's continue to keep our family's healthy by making good choices. Here's to your health.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
