Importance of Medical Coding for Insurance

With health and diseases becoming a major issue these days around the world, it has become A LOT more important to have more and more coders involved in the medical field for insurance. But what is medical coding? A medical coder, clinical coding officer, or diagnostic coder are professionals involved in the health care sector who analyze clinical documents and using proper classification systems, assign standard codes to them. They provide medical coding guidelines and suggestions to help regulate the ways doctors, nurses, and other medical staff provide care for their patients. There are three main types of medical coding:

1) ICD (International Classification of Diseases): These are codes used for describing the cause of illness, injury, or death.

2) CPT (Current Procedural Terminology): These deal with anesthesia, surgery, pathology, radiology, measurement procedures, and new technological changes in the medical field.

3) HCPCS Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System): These include outpatient hospital care, medical aid, and Medicare.

Let us look at some points as to why coding is necessary for the medical field.

DATA SYSTEMS
When the coding is paired with the data systems of the hospitals, a powerful tool is made. By doing so, a large number of data from various hospitals, clinics, and other sources are stored, accessed, and used from one large online data system. This implementation helps in the transfer of any patient’s data from any hospital to another for any medical purpose. This information helps doctors to be more connected and make wiser decisions, especially in cases involving the life and death situation of the patient.

PATIENT CARE

Coding is very much required for reimbursements, which include submitting medical claims with insurance companies and bills between insurers and patients. The transfer of information for bill related purposes requires medical records, patient’s medical needs, lab results, pathology records (if any), and any other related documents. Appropriate payment is possible only when the required diagnostic codes are put in place, which also means to verify in case the medical claim is denied by the insurance company.

REGULATIONS

Medical billing and coding fall under the rules and guidelines of many countries and states. Coders in this field are also responsible for protecting the privacy of the patients and their families. They are supposed to take safeguards to preserve the confidential details concerning the patient and his/her medical background in a safe place. Electronic medical records fall under the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) codes issued by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Medical coding analysts are in the front line in healthcare data analytics. They work in many types of healthcare setups and not necessarily in hospitals and clinics. Their valuable service is very functional for research and development in the medical field.

Medical coders are in high demand, with an average growth rate of 20% over 10 years. The training imparted to become a medical coder can be offline and online. Many institutes provide Online Medical Coding Training globally that are reasonably priced and provide proper teaching. Medical training may seem hard, but with many jobs being created in this field, this is the first option chosen by many coders who wish to work in the medical field. Of course, with the ongoing pandemic, it is best to have Medical coding training online.

What Are The Dangers of Using Facebook to Grow Your Business?

Several years ago, if you wanted to grow your business, Facebook was the most popular method. And many people still feel today that using this Social Media Platform is practical.

This thought process is nativity glorified. When Facebook launched in 2004, my friend called and invited me to join her. After about a year I finally did it. It did not occur to me that I could grow a business using it.

Several years later after I closed my brick and mortar business, I helped other small business owners develop and grow their business on social media. And like most consultants, I recommended and used Facebook. My small business owners were successful, so I was successful.

Later when I retired from small business consulting, I decided to open my doors to on-line marketing. And it was enjoyable as well as educational. Like so many other people, I learned from failure. Marketing anything on-line is challenging because of the scams.

When I finally earned my master’s degree from the University of Hard Knocks using Internet for my business adventures, I found that I too could use Facebook to grow and expand my bank account.

Using Facebook Groups, and building relationships was easy. I opened four groups of my own. All was going very well. Although I was not completely happy with Facebook it was producing results. And I did buy Facebook advertising occasionally.

Several of my business associates cautioned about changes on the horizon. But I was successful and did not listen. That was my mistake.

The point here is this; do not trust this platform. They have a unique way of selling our personal information, and an even more unique way of tracking our posts. (Yes, even our business content).

The insidious fact checking is primary. Mostly because the fact checking is not fact checking, it is a way to silence and control our content.

Be careful if you are building your business on this platform. At any moment they can disable your account. And much of the time you are not told exactly the reason.

I lost all my personal groups, plus my thousands of followers and my account. If I had only listened to my associates before this happened, I would never used this platform.

My business was moral, legal, ethical and above-board. I lost my Facebook account because my content didn’t fit their narrative.

I have opened a new account. But never again will I trust a platform that controls my content; business or personal.

Anyone who suggests that you build your business with Facebook is naive. The marketplace and business environment is not what it was five or tens years ago. Today, it’s about control. Your business is your livelihood; it’s your hard work. Think about it before you move forward. Perhaps you may want to make changes.

How To Write Engaging Social Media Posts

One thing to do on social media is to write content for your posts. Posts are what keep your social media active and your audience engaged. However, it’s imperative that you have a strategy so that you can get the most out of your social media interactions.

Understand Your Customers

You need to know who your target audience is so that you can recognize what type of posts will get more traction with them. For example, some audience members will be insulted by certain types of comedy. Others will respond very well to it. Know who they are so that your posts can be targeted.

Watch Your Competition

It’s always a good idea to check out what your competition is doing in regard to social media posts. Don’t just copy what they are doing. Instead, observe whether or not the competition is getting a result or not from their actions, and note how you can do it better or differently.

Know the Goal of the Post

What action do you want your customers to take when they read the post? Do you want them to click through to read more? Do you want them to like, follow and share? You need to be clear about what you want them to do in order to get action.

Add a Relevant Image

People respond best to relevant images on social media. You can make memes and infographic using free software like Canva.com for your social media posts. A nice image, watermarked with a relevant quote will do wonders.

Write Content that Gets Attention

When you share a meme or a blog post or other type of post write content about it, and what you want your readers to do about it.

Ask Your Audience to Share

Never forget to ask your audience to share your posts. You can also invite them to take memes and infographics off your website to share. Just set up a new page that lists all the watermarked images that your audience can share.

Respond to Comments

Don’t just ignore the interaction that is happening on your social media pages. Always respond, and add comments to the discussion. Answer questions, and be kind. Even if someone is rude, don’t respond rudely. If you have to, delete the rude comment and let it go.

Writing social media posts that get a discussion going and inspire people to share and interact is an art. You’ll need to try different tactics to see what works with your particular audience. But, be sure to always have a call to action on the post so that your audience knows what to do.