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Most health care facilities in this country accept responsibility for filing health insurance claims.  This is done either in the office, or forms are sent to a billing company that provides medical billing services for a fee.  Because of the increasing complexity of medical billing and the increased number of managed care insurance programs, the need for additional skilled medical billing specialists is growing rapidly. 

Because billing has become more complex, more training is required than ever before.  Untrained personnel can no longer cope with the myriad of programs, regulations, and updates in the field.  Likewise, medical facilities cannot operate with the loss of revenue resulting from inaccurate billing and inexperienced personnel. This is especially true since carriers, including and especially the government (Medicare), have consistently cut payment amounts over the last 10 years.  It follows that since most health care facilities are dealing with reduced payment revenue, poor billing practices cannot be tolerated. 

In addition to the typical doctor’s office situation, there are opportunities with the health insurance carriers, malpractice and liability insurance companies, state, local, and federal government agencies, medical consulting companies, law offices, private insurance billing companies, hospitals, clinics, schools, computer companies specializing in medical software, and self-employed consulting and/or billing companies. The actual duties may vary from position to position, as we discussed earlier, but the basic knowledge needed is the same. 

A career in medical billing should be considered for many reasons. First, it represents a good, solid, stable job, with varying salary ranges, depending on such variables as specific duties, geographic region, experience, and the company itself.  A medical billing specialist is a respected member of the health care team.  And, as is true of all health care careers, you will be able to help people every day.  It certainly is a career worth working for!

John E. Long
Medical Billing Program Instructor
Ashworth School of Health Care

In my opinion, the ability to maintain positive “human relations” is one of the most important aspects of modern pharmacy.  We are fortunate that the public has always viewed pharmacy as an honorable profession.  I believe we owe this to our ability to serve our customers well, acting always in their best interests.  For one thing, we are much more accessible to the public than any other healthcare professionals.  Therefore, patients trust us with their health concerns and feel comfortable confiding even embarrassing problems with us.  If we maintain a professional attitude and treat our customers with respect, they’ll return and tell us even more about their conditions, which will help the supervising pharmacist advise them and, in some cases, provide vital information to the attending doctors.

While working in retail, I had many opportunities to practice my interpersonal skills.  Remember, when patients come to you, they may already be sick and may have spent time at a doctor’s office that day.  By the time they get to the pharmacy, they may have run out of patience.  I’ve found that greeting patients with a smile and a pleasant manner puts them at ease.  They don’t mind waiting for a prescription if they feel you are taking good care of them.  Be sure to explain what information you need from them to make the process go more quickly and why you need it.  If there’s a delay or if it takes longer than normal to prepare the prescription, give them updates.  For example, you may have to wait for insurance approval, or a suspension might need time to dissolve.  Information lets customers feel they are part of the process.  When they understand what is going on, they usually remain calm.

Tina Boyd Stacy
Pharmacy Technology Instructor
Ashworth University

              
             Thanks to Javier Belmont for permission to use this Photo.

While working as a pharmacy technician, you will see that most muscle relaxants and hormones are available only as prescription (or legend) drugs.  A few years ago, I was working at a retail store late on a Friday evening.  A person walked slowly up to the pharmacy counter and asked me to sell him some carisoprodol (a muscle relaxant).  Being pretty naïve, I asked for his name so I could pull up his refills on the computer.  He replied, “I don’t have a prescription.”  After I informed him that carisoprodol required a prescription, he left the pharmacy.  Without a valid prescription I could neither provide the man with carisoprodol nor appropriately assess his intentions for use.  

Be aware that, even though many muscle relaxants are not controlled substances, they do have the potential for being abused.  You can perform a valuable service by assisting the pharmacist in monitoring the quantity and frequency of refills your customers purchase.  If you notice a possible abuse situation, notify the pharmacist.  If it’s a case of the original prescription being no longer adequate, it may be time for the patient’s doctor to try a higher dose or another medication altogether. 

Tina Boyd Stacy
Pharmacy Technology Instructor
Ashworth University

From Hannah Waight of Experience:

No longer is healthcare confined to doctors and nurses - now more than ever jobs are available for people with all types of interests within this highly diverse industry. Although you may not look forward to that trip to the dentist or those yearly shots from the doctor, no one can deny that healthcare is an essential aspect of all of our lives.  People who are willing and able to work in the health industry will always be in demand.  In fact, healthcare has long been one of the biggest industries in the nation, and now, because of the aging population of the United States and advances in medical technology, the need for qualified workers is only going to increase.  Your ideal job is within your grasp as long as you have the appropriate background and inside information.

As an industry, healthcare offers a diverse range of jobs for many different types of people.  You can work in the traditional health provision sector as a doctor or nurse, or in a wide variety of medical fields.  Preventative medicine and recovery is getting increasing attention from insurance companies looking to keep their costs down: dietitians, counselors, and physical therapists all play key roles in keeping people healthy. Research in academic medicine and biotechnology provides opportunities for professionals interested in discovering the next generation of treatment.  The people- and paperwork-oriented are needed to run the business and administrative side of the industry.

Copyright © 1996 - 2008 Experience, Inc. - All Rights Reserved

To read more of Hannah’s great article, login to the Ashworth University Career Center through the student portal and click here.

Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University

          Thanks to Lorianne DiSabato for permission to use this Photo. 

It is time, I think, to face the realpolitik of health care reform. That means asking a question few reformers dare to discuss:  How will we win the Congressional votes needed to pass serious health care reform? The American Prospect’s Ezra Klein put this question on the table at the “Take Back America” conference last week.  A pragmatic progressive (in the best sense), Klein pulled no punches:  “There are so many people in this town [D.C.] who do such smart policy thinking,” he observed. But “what we don’t give enough thought to is the politics of reform. This is a political problem. Until we have the votes in the Senate, we can’t get anything done.”Without the votes, Klein told reformers, “you don’t have a plan; you have a position.”

Some assume that, if we elect a progressive president, he will “put the votes together” to achieve reform. But the fact is that even an optimistic, charismatic JFK wasn’t able to persuade Congress to unite behind healthcare for the elderly in the early 1960s—a time when seniors were the poorest group in America. It was only after Kennedy was assassinated that a wily LBJ (who had grown up in Congress and knew where all of the bodies were buried on the Hill) was able to leverage a martyred president’s last wishes to help pass Medicare in 1965. The fact that LBJ had won by a landslide sealed the deal.

This time around, nailing the votes that would secure something like “Medicare for Everyone Who Wants It” will be much tougher. As I noted in my first post in this series, “Obstacles to Health Care Reform,” the lobbyists representing the for-profit health care industry enjoy enormous power. The money at stake in the health care industry has grown exponentially since 1965. And thanks to generous campaign contributions, the industry’s lobbyists wield great influence, even among liberal politicians.                  

Who can counter that kind of power?  Citizens who vote.  Lobbyists have dollars, but a billion dollars won’t help a politician if his constituency has made it clear that it won’t re-elect him unless he passes a particular piece of legislation that voters want. Nevertheless, any hope that pressure from voters will give Congressmen the spine to stand up to the lobbyists turns on the assumption that voters share common goals. With that assumption in mind, I decided to take a hard look at where most voters stand on health care reform. Polls show that the majority of Americans say that they want universal healthcare—but drill a little deeper, and you’ll find that different groups have very different priorities.

(more…)

Photo courtesy of Greg_Reser

Google announced the launch of a pilot project in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic to provide select patients access to their medical record using the Google health platform.

According to the Associated Press, Google will:

begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that’s likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader.

The pilot project to be announced Thursday will involve 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic who volunteered to an electronic transfer of their personal health records so they can be retrieved through Google’s new service, which won’t be open to the general public.

Each health profile, including information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories, will be protected by a password that’s also required to use other Google services such as e-mail and personalized search tools. (more…)

              Thanks to Tahoe Sunsets for permission to use this Photo.

The Center for Public Integrity, a public interest investigative journalism organization, has obtained copies of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study of environmental and health data in eight Great Lakes states that was scheduled for publication in July 2007.

The report, which pointed to elevated rates of lung, colon, and breast cancer; low birth weight; and infant mortality in several of the geographical areas of concern has not yet been made public. A few days before the report was slated to be released, it was pulled. Meanwhile, at precisely the same time, its lead author, Christopher De Rosa, has been removed from the position he held since 1992.  The Center for Public Integrity is asking why.

The study, “Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern” was developed by the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) at the request of the International Joint Commission, an independent U.S-Canadian organization that monitors and advises both governments on the use and quality of boundary waters. The CDC report brings together two sets of data: environmental data on known “areas of concern” — including superfund sites and hazardous waste dumps — and separate health data collected by county or, in some cases, smaller geographical regions. The study does not try to prove cause and effect. Instead, it outlines areas for further study and data collection on the link between pollution and health.”Let’s say we have a superfund site and we also find elevated risk of leukemia in the county — is that related? We don’t know, but people living in the area can logically argue that we ought to find out,” Dr. Peter Orris, a professor at the University of Illinois School of Public Health and one of the peer reviewers of the study told Oneworld.net. (more…)

Tea and coffee are the major sources of caffeine in our diet, but there are significant amounts to be found in less likely foods such as cocoa, chocolate bars, drinking chocolate, cola, sports drinks, some desserts and ice creams. Caffeine is also important ingredient in some cold and pain relief medications. Without doubt, caffeine acts as a stimulant, which can stave off fatigue and enhance mental performance when we are feeling sluggish. It stimulates the heart, open the airways and can even aid digestion by stimulating gastric juices. However, there is another side to this most acceptable of drugs.

Stress And Stimulation

Caffeine acts like stress on the body, causing the physical symptoms of the ‘flight or fight’ response. It stimulates the adrenal glands to release the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol which, in turn, cause the liver to break down its store of glycogen and release it as glucose into the bloodstream. In response, the pancreas releases insulin, which helps deposit the blood glucose into the body cells. As calcium is needed to increase the heart rate, improve muscle contraction and thicken the blood, this mineral is mobilized from the bones. In short, the body prepares for action.

The problem is that when we drink or eat caffeine, we are rarely preparing for any physical action. We are usually sitting down, eating and drinking, or having a cup of tea, coffee or cola at our desks to keep us going. In effect, the body has responded to a false alarm but the physical results of this state of alert remain the same. If caffeine were the only stressor in our lives then perhaps it would be less of a problem. However, the combination of stressors we all live with can make caffeine detrimental to our health. (more…)

Wellsphere is an online community devoted to fitness, exercise, and the overall promotion of a healthy lifestyle.  Think of Wellsphere as a social network for people interested in discussing the latest in health matters from a personal perspective.  I’ve actually developed a lot of good relationships there and learned a lot of useful tips along the way.  From weight loss advice to nutrition plans, there are informative discussions going on all the time.  Take a few minutes to check it out.  Perhaps there are elements of the Wellsphere community that you’d like to see included in our Ashworth Health Care community?  If so, please share your suggestions in the comments section.  Let’s open up the possibilities!

Carla Hardy MS, CSCS
Fitness and Exercise Instructor
Ashworth University

                 Thanks to Rinux for permission to use this Photo.

A Kaiser Permanente study released today virtually confirms the link between high caffeine intake during the pregnancy period and an increased risk of miscarriage.  This link has often been suspected by researchers, but past studies have proven inconclusive due to a lack of testing control over pregnancy symptoms such as nausea, which made it difficult to directly measure caffeine’s precise impact.  Although the conclusions of this study are troubling, mothers should also feel empowered to make healthier decisions regarding their consumption of caffeine.  Furthermore, the study provides expectant mothers with some practical advice to help balance their need for extra energy, i.e. switch to sources of natural energy such as walks, yoga, and dried fruits.  This is a must read article for all of our mothers to be out there.  Keep your Ashworth Health Care community updated if you begin to make some positive lifestyle changes in this area.  Take care! 

Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University