Author Topic: Best Textbook for Self Study  (Read 2976 times)

MC

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Best Textbook for Self Study
« on: June 03, 2016, 06:44:13 PM »
Hello all,

My wife has a small business that is medical in nature and up til now she's only been accepting self pay clients.  In the coming months the landscape of her field is changing, including state licensure for her profession, and we want to explore the possibilities of billing insurance for her services.  I'd like to see about learning more in depth about the process of medical billing and reimbursement, and I've always been one who learns best from reading the textbook rather than sitting in some classroom or even being taught a subject.

Therefore, I came to the experts here on this forum to see what recommendations you all have for a textbook style book that could be or even is used in the classroom setting.  One that I have looked at on Amazon is Understanding Health Insurance: A Guide to Billing and Reimbursement by Michelle A. Green.  Anyone have experience with this or have a different recommendation?

Thanks!

PMRNC

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Re: Best Textbook for Self Study
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2016, 05:08:55 PM »
Good book and I can reccomend also Health Insurance Handbook and Understanding Health Insurance (latest editions)

ONE thing you want to do though is first research her licensure.. You didn't mention what type of provider she is. If she is an allied care professional it might be hard to get on certain panels and then there is Medicare/Medicaid to think of. Also EMR if she will participate with Medicare, Medicaid, etc. I'd really do some research according to her license and specialty before jumping in. :)
Linda Walker
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Michele

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Re: Best Textbook for Self Study
« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2016, 01:55:07 PM »
What type of medical business is it?  I have to respectfully disagree with Linda.  I am not a fan of the Understanding Health Insurance:  A Guide to Billing and Reimbursement.  In all fairness I have the 11th edition and there are two newer releases.  I am not familiar with Health Insurance Handbook.  I tried to find it but I couldn't locate.  (Insurance Handbook for the Medical Office by Marilyn Fordney?) Maybe if you share what type of business and what exactly you are looking for we would be able to point towards a good resource.
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MC

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Re: Best Textbook for Self Study
« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2016, 01:06:56 AM »
Thank you both for your responses.

The business is actually lactation consultations.  Later this summer GA will be only the second state in the Union to offer licensure to IBCLCs, which will make dealing with insurance companies a bit easier.  We've dabbled up to this point and even were successful in getting in network with one, but we'd like to see about striking while iron is hot, and ramping things up with accepting insurance.

Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.  ☺

Michele

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Re: Best Textbook for Self Study
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2016, 12:44:52 PM »
Good idea to get ahead of the game!  I will tell you what my issue is with the Understanding Health Insurance book.  It has a lot of unnecessary information.  It has a lot of background stuff that in my opinion is just not necessary for what you want to learn.  Also, the author is limited by the company and their editors.  They don't always agree with how things have to be worded or what some of the content is.  If you just want to learn the history of medical billing and textbook information then it might work for you.  But if you want to learn actual current medical billing skills that can be used in the real world I don't think that book is going to help too much.  Books like that are the reason that we developed our online billing course.  We have seen so many people that take courses in medical billing only to come out of the course unable to work in a billing office.  We've hired people that graduated but had to be completely trained.  The only advantage they had was that they understood the terminology we were using.  So honestly I can't recommend any textbook that would work for what you are looking for, including any that we've written.  It's hard to put knowledge about how to do billing into a textbook format. 

The other book that Linda mentioned may be ok but I couldn't find it.  Unless it is the one by Marilyn Fordney.  I feel the same way about that book as I do the other one. 

I guess it comes down to what you want to learn.  If you want to learn about medical billing the textbook may be fine.  If you want to learn how to do medical billing I would seriously consider a course.  You can read about ours at www.medicalbillingstudycourse.com

Best of luck!

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Re: Best Textbook for Self Study
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2016, 12:44:52 PM »

williamportor

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Re: Best Textbook for Self Study
« Reply #5 on: July 15, 2016, 08:30:20 AM »
Hello - I've read  Understanding Health Insurance: A Guide to Billing and Reimbursement, and found about 15% of it to be really useful. It may be worth purchasing it, but frankly the information on this website contains more useful  "real world" information than I've ever read in a book.   

Medical Billing Forum

Re: Best Textbook for Self Study
« Reply #5 on: July 15, 2016, 08:30:20 AM »