How Can I Make the Most Money in Medical Billing and Coding?

As a medical billing and coding clerk, you may want to increase your salary. But, what do we have to do to increase our billing and coding salary? Let’s find out some tips to increase your salary so that you are able to make the most money in the medical billing and coding field.

There are several factors which can make you earn a lot of money from working as a medical billing and coding clerk such as workplace, location, certification, years of experience, and hiring agency. According to the Desert Medical Careers website, here is the explanation of each factor.

How Can I Make the Most Money in Medical Billing and Coding

Workplace

One of the factors which can decide the salary that you earn is the type of workplace where you work. According to the American Academy of Professional Coders’s salary surveys, it showed that the best places to work as a medical billing and coding clerk are in Hospital Inpatient, Health System, or Large Group Practices.

Location

Location also plays an important role in deciding how much money that you will earn from your job. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, locations which have the highest annual mean wage of May 2016 are:

    • The West Coast including Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada
    • The East Coast including New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland
    • Minnesota
    • Colorado
    • Alaska

Certification

If you have a certification, you will have a chance to get a higher salary. According to the AAPC’s annual salary survey, it has shown that credentials can result in higher income. According to the 2017 salary survey, it reports that if you have only one credential, it can raise your annual pay by an average of $6,442.

There are a number of organizations which offer certifications for medical coders and billers. AAPC is one of those organizations.

According to the AAPC’s salary survey from 2014 to 2017, here are some of the highest paying medical coding certifications.

    • CPC-I
      People who had this certification earned an average yearly salary of $75,000. This certification means that you are an AAPC certified instructor and you are able to teach at licensed schools or businesses.
    • CPCO
      For coders who had CPCO certification, they earned an average salary of $73,500. CPCOs are compliance officers who have a task to develop, implement, and monitor a healthcare compliance program based on governmental regulatory guidelines. If you want to be a CPCO, you will be required to have at least five years of medical coding and auditing experience.
    • CPPM
      The medical coders with CPPM certification earned an average of $65,250 per year. If you have this certification, you will manage a physician’s practice and you are knowledgeable in compliance, health care reform issues, EMR, and other areas which relate to the general business processes of the office of physician.
    • CPMA
      Medical coders who had CPMA certification earned an average yearly salary of $64,000. If you want to have this certification, you have to be an expert in coding, coding risk analysis, and medical documentation which is in line with governmental guidelines. You will also have to be able to communicate audit conclusions comfortably in report form and also verbally.

Years of Experience

If you have more experience as a medical coding and billing clerk, you will get more money. According to the AAPC’s salary survey, people who have more years of experience can make more money than those who are just starting out in the profession. According to the 2017 Salary Survey, the average salary of medical billers and coders who had 0 to 1 year of experience was $38,011, but those who had 10 to 15 years of experience made an average yearly salary of $55,793.

Hiring Agency

You probably have heard that there was someone who got a job  before the job vacancy was advertised. Or, you may also have heard that there was a person who was recruited for a new position and it was suitable for him/her when she or he was not looking for a new job. Those people have everything to do with letting the right people know their experience, skills, and career goals.

You are able to work with an agency which specializes in healthcare and has a long term relationship with healthcare employers. If you work with them, usually you will get a quicker and better job compared to if you look for a job by yourself.

Increasing Your Medical Billing and Coding Salary by Getting a Higher Level Job

If you want to have a higher salary in a medical billing and coding field, you are able to have a higher level job in this field. As mentioned on the Medical Billing and Coding website, those higher level jobs include Advanced Specialty Certification Jobs, Hospital Coding Manager, Health Information Manager, Medical and Health Services Manager, and Clinical Manager.

The Highest Paid Medical Coding Specialties in the World

According to the World Scholarship Forum site, there are 10 top highest paid medical coding specialties in the world. Those are listed below.

    • Certified Documentation Expert Outpatient (CDEO)
      The salary gotten by this profession is around $69,987.
    • Certified Coding Specialist
      The salary gotten by this specialist is around $61,379 per year.
    • Certified Risk Adjustment Coder
      The salary gotten by this coder is around $64,882.
    • Certified Outpatient Coder
      The salary gotten by a certified outpatient coder is around $54,980.
    • Certified Radiology Coder
      The salary gotten by this coder is around $49,328.
    • Certified Cardiovascular and Thoracic Coder
      The salary gotten is around $48,145.
    • Certified Rheumatology Coder
      The salary gotten is around $48,501.
    • Inpatient Coder
      The salary gotten by this coder is around $51,162 per year.
    • Ambulatory Surgery Centers Coder
      An ambulatory surgery centers coder will be asked by Medicare to deliver their bills to professional fee payers while using the facility fee claim form.
    • Certified Urology Coder
      The salary gotten by this profession is around $40,150.

Well, you may also want to consider choosing to work as one of the above coders for a better salary. However, once again that the amount of salary from one place to another can be different.

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