Steps in the Medical Billing Process

There are many necessary and very important steps involved in the medical billing process. These steps include: preregistering patients, establishing the financial responsibility for the patients visit, signing the patient in, checking the patient out, reviewing coding compliance, check billing compliance, preparing and transmitting claims, monitoring payer adjudication, generate and provide statements for the patient, and following up on patient payments and handling any collections (Valerius, Bayes, Newby, & Seggern, 2008). The first step in the medical billing process is preregistering the patient. The two main tasks of this step in the process is to schedule and update appointments, and to collect all the patients basic information; including the reason they need to be seen. If this information is not collected or is given incorrectly the whole medical billing process is put on hold (Valerius, Bayes, Newby, & Seggern, 2008). The second step of the medical billing process is to establish financial responsibility for the visit. During this step the financial responsibility is determined by the information that has been received. Patients who have medical insurance coverage are required to answer several questions about their specific healthcare coverage. Once all the information has been received the information must be verified (Valerius, Bayes, Newby, & Seggern, 2008). The third step of the process is to check the patient in; which is different depending on whether the patient is a returning patient or a new patient. Returning patients are asked to review, verify, and make any necessary changes to their records, and new patients are asked to fill out forms and give complete demographic and medical insurance information. Financial records are also checked to make sure that payments are up-to-date. Payments and copayments are also determined and noted during this step (Valerius, Bayes, Newby, & Seggern, 2008). The fourth step is to check