Step 2: Finding Clients for Your Transcription or Billing Business

Find work specialized to your needs through the iHire Network >> Medical Secretary Jobs How to Attract New Customers and Get them to Buy More No matter what transcription or billing services you offer, there are certain marketing techniques that will not only find you new customers, but will entice them to buy more products from you and buy more often. Respected Small Business Marketing Expert David Frey shows you how to implement these strategies without a whole lot of effort. Find out how >> Best Marketing Strategies Business Cards that Make Advertising Easy Give them to people in your neighborhood, network with people you know, leave them with stores, offices and other places that busy professionals tend to hang out. With over 300 professional business card designs and easy-to-use templates, creation is a snap, and printing is done for you. Click here now >> Free Business Cards for Transcription or Billing

Step 3: Discover How At-Home Entrepreneurs Succeed

Paul Hackett has owned a Medical Billing Business for 8+ years and has helped many entrepreneurs get started with their own medical billing businesses - from home. As an Experience Medical billing Professional, Hackett shows you:

• Where to find contact information for new clients
• Which services you should be offering to prospective physicians (important!)
• What to say exactly to prospective physicians (and their staff) to get their business
• He also includes samples of contracts, fliers and other business forms that you'll need.

Medical Claims Processing: Operations Here’s the Radio City Rockettes chorus line of chores, a sort of rapid-fire revue of a medical claims specialist’s daily bump and grind: Enter your patient information, adding new insurance carriers to your database as you go along. Be sure you enter the referral source or referring physician as well as any other information you’ve agreed to track for your clients. Enter CPT and ICD-9 codes from the superbills (a charge slip that lists the services and procedures commonly performed by the provider and gives the patient’s name, date of visit and any charges) and day sheets. Your software will automatically fill in the amounts charged for each procedure. Enter each charge on a separate line. Transmit electronic claims directly to insurance carriers or to the clearinghouse. Receive the audit report, review and correct errors on it, forward clean claims and resubmit rejected claims. Print any paper claims. Separate claims into your copy and the insurer’s, fold and insert in envelopes. Weigh any envelopes containing more than five claims to make sure you have sufficient postage. Post payments to each patient’s account. Most software programs include features that show which charges have been paid, how much is left on each charge and which charges are still unpaid. Print aging reports so you can review each patient’s account to determine which ones haven’t been paid in a timely manner. Most software packages will do this for you, too. Call insurance carriers to check on the status of delinquent claims. Most of your follow-up calls will be for paper claims. Put your feet up and relax. You’ve earned a breather. Location One of the great perks of running a medical billing service is that it lends itself ideally to the homebased entrepreneur. It’s convenient—you couldn’t get any closer to your office unless you slept with your computer. It’s economical—you don’t need to spend money on leased space, extra utilities, transportation costs or lunches down at the corner grill. It doesn’t require a high-traffic or high-visibility location and doesn’t need to be in the trendy part of town or in an industrial complex, although those are certainly options. You don’t need a mahogany-paneled office with a lobby and conference room to impress or entertain clients. The only space requirement is an area large enough for your desk, your chair, a few filing cabinets and perhaps a bookshelf. Working at home, however, is not mandatory. You may want to leave your laundry, your dog and/or your kids/spouse at home while you go off to an office space that’s nice, quiet, clean and yours alone. The contents of this Start-Up Kit are excerpted from How to Start a Medical Claims Billing Service an Entrepreneur Start-Up Guide

Medical Claims Processing: Start-Up Costs One of the many nifty things about a medical billing service is that its start-up costs are comparatively low. You have the advantage of homebased-ability, which cuts office lease expenses down to nothing. You have almost no inventory, which means no outlay of funds for pretty doodads to grace display spaces (you have no display spaces!). Your major financial outlay will go toward office equipment and your software and/or business opportunity—and if you’re like many moderns, you already have a computer. But let’s take it from the top. The following is a breakdown of everything—from heavy investment pieces to flyweight items—you’ll need to get up and running: Computer system with modem and printer Fax machine Software and/or business opportunity fee Clearinghouse Reference materials HCFA 1500 forms Phone Voice mail or answering machine Stationery and office supplies Postage Software Solutions Your medical billing software is going to be your closest partner after your significant other, so choose carefully. The list of suitors is lengthy, with medical billing/patient accounting programs and packages ranging from $500 to $10,000. Different packages have different capabilities, but more expensive is not necessarily better or worse. You can buy the bare-bones software or purchase a complete business opportunity package, which can include lead generation, seminars, marketing help and hold-your-hand technical support along with the software. "You can hire a [local] marketing guru for lots less than [you can buy] a business opportunity," advises Gary Knox of Resource Books, which publishes The Directory of Medical Management Software. Don’t ignore the business opportunities, he says, but look carefully to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth. Whichever option you choose, you’ll want to make sure the software is the suitor of your dreams.

Once you identify the software of your dreams and pocketbook, make sure it has a good reputation. Find out how long the vendor or developer has been in business and how many people (preferably thousands) are using the product. Get references, and don’t be shy about calling them. Most medical claims processors are only too happy to share their experiences and will be glad to give you tips other than just a software reference. It can be one of your first forays into networking. Ask lots of questions, such as, Is the program user-friendly? How good is the technical support? How available is the technical support? How long has the person you’re talking to been using the program? Are they happy with it? Have they heard any rumbles about possible problems in the future, such as the vendor leaving for a permanent Tahitian vacation? Clearinghouse Costs Hiring a clearinghouse—the companies that receive and transmit claims electronically—requires research on your part. If the software is like a marriage partner or significant other, then the clearinghouse is the brother or sister-in-law that comes to visit for what seems like the rest of your life. You’d better be sure you’re happy living under the same roof with it. Also like software, clearinghouse costs vary radically. You should allocate from zero to $300 for "membership" fees and from zero to $50 per doctor for sign-up. Reference Books Although your reference library can comfortably contain a wealth of texts, we’ll consider here only the very few that are real must-haves, the ICD-9, CPT and HCPCS Common Procedure coding books. If you’re billing for dentists, you’ll also want the CDT-2, which is the dental version of CPT codes. You can sketch in about $200 total for the first three on the list, plus another $100 for the CDT book. The contents of this Start-Up Kit are excerpted from How to Start a Medical Claims Billing Home Business, and Entrepreneur Start-up Guide

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