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Best clients for newbies

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Pay_My_Claims:
Queen I can only tell you my experience with Dental, and it can be specific to certain areas, but in NC, there is a HUGE volume of medicaid billing, and straight CASH clients. Most providers don't tend to welcome medical billers. My experience with dental actually started by working with a pediatrician and with NC medicaid/HC patients they were able to get dental check ups and we had to bill those codes. My girlfriend finally broke into Dental and it was one of the reasons back then I wanted to do it because of the HUGE BONUSES you get. Dental plans don't cover everything so in order to be seen you pay cash. They make a majority of their money by cash clients. Its not complex like health insurance, the coding is simple, and they usually have the biller doing dental assisting as well.

PMRNC:
Though Dental coverage is not great at all (it's pretty bad all over the country) there are SEVERAL new products and individual plan's now. Some act like credit cards, some are 50/50 plans, etc. It really is an UNtapped part of the business.  When's the last time you went into a dental office and saw ONLY one person behind the desk? My dentist has 8 OFFICE staff people in addition to their hygienists and 2 Dentists.

Michele:
We did dental about 15 years ago.  It was actually quite easy.  We had NO experience in dental, and very little in medical.  But we had no problems.  We had and still have a great work ethic, and were determined to do what we needed, learn what we needed, etc to get the job done and done right.  It was actually quite profitable, mostly commercial insurance, little medicaid or cash.  We did one dental group with many foreign docs, for about a year.  We gave it up because they were not on the up and up.  We suspected fraud and we wanted no part of it.  We attempted to 'show' them our concerns but they were obviously not concerned so we gave notice.  I would do it again, but I don't have the time!  I agree I think it's an uptapped market. 

Regarding having no experience, I can relate.  Many of our first appointments were lost due to our "no references, no experience".  But some became clients.  And those clients became experience and references!  We have interviewed employees with no experience and hired them.  They presented themselves with confidence, and an eagerness to learn.  In fact we just hired a girl.  No experience in this field whatsoever.  She has given us more in one week than some employees we hired with YEARS of experience.  When we started, we had to make this work.  I left my job to start my family.  I needed to replace my income AND not increase my expenses with childcare.  I also have that entreprenureal bug so determination was not an issue.  Sometimes you are in a situation where working for someone else won't work for you.  I do think that getting experience by working for someone else is a good idea, so I'm not saying don't do it.  I'm saying that sometimes it's not an option, and you need to make this work.  Soooooo, When you meet with a provider you need to show them that you are a competent, capable, reliable person who even without references or experience will do an outstanding job on their work. 

Please don't mistake my advice for saying that anyone without experience can do this work.  You must do your homework, research, and stay in contact with billers that will be a support system for you.  You are responsible for their receivables and that is a responsibility you shouldn't take lightly. 

Best wishes for your future!

Michele

PMRNC:
I agree it is HARD to find work with no hands on experience, but here's a positive note and I just got an email about this this morning from one of our members I was mentoring.
She was brand new to billing. She took both an online course and a few medical administrative courses at her local college. She started her business and began marketing 2 weeks after completing her course. She befriended 2 other billing companies, one had just one small client and the other had a large DME practice.  They got together and rented a medium sized conference room at a nice small but elegant Hotel in the middle of where they all were. They sent out 500 invitations/fliers and some raffle tickets. They invited office managers and physicians to a one hour round table discussion. It cost them each $42 plus gratuity, they had coffee, danish, pastries and 3 tables setup. They received 43 responses and confirmed 39 attendee's of which 37 attended. They each chose one topic and a discussion took back among the three billing companies and the attendee's. They ended up there for an extra hour, the hotel did not charge them since the room was NOT booked AND 2 of the guests stayed there for the remainder of the weekend. At the end they passed out business cards and some marketing goodies from their own tables.  The one I was mentoring got 8 individual appointments setup and this morning she told me she signed 3 of the 8 so far with 4 more meetings to go!  NOT one of them asked her if she had experience. Know why? Because she overshadowed that question with her knowledge and confidence. The other two billing companies also made appointments and from what she told me.. they each have signed contracts as well. Also they now have a foot in the door of all the other practices that attended and they left an impression on. Oh, they invited another local billing company who declined because she felt it was too competitive. Her loss was their gain!

Moral of story.. IT is NOT impossible to walk into this business with no experience.. If you take the time and effort to educate yourself, put your KNOWLEDGE out there, you can take the focus OFF of the "experience" issue! 

Alice Scott:
Tha's a great story Linda.  Thanks for sharing it with us.  Newbies love to hear how others succeed.

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