Insurance Handbook for the Medical Office (Paperback)

by Marilyn Fordney CMA-AC (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Book Description
Master all aspects of insurance billing - from submitting to tracing, appealing, and transmitting claims

Product Description
Trusted by medical insurance specialists for more than 30 years, Insurance Handbook for the Medical Office helps you excel at all aspects of insurance billing for a full range of today's health care plans. This edition helps you keep pace with industry changes, featuring the latest information on HIPAA regulations, diagnostic coding, procedural coding, office and insurance collection strategies, Medicare, and more. The accompanying Student Workbook with CD-ROM (sold separately) lets you practice "real world" billing with patient simulations using Altapoint and the Student Software Challenge.

• Procedural (CPT and HCPCS) and diagnostic (ICD-9-CM) coding and documentation are emphasized, since they are the keystones to obtaining maximum reimbursement.
• Key terms are bolded at first mention, explained within the context of the discussion, and defined in the glossary.
• Separate chapters on Electronic Data Interchange and HIPAA Compliance and Privacy in Insurance Billing provide essential knowledge of electronic claims filing, informing you of submission guidelines used in the majority of medical offices today.
• Icons clearly identify each insurance payer with a specific color and graphic, making specific information easy to locate.
• Compliance features located at appropriate points throughout most chapters offer tips to ensure compliance with correct billing and coding practice, particularly HIPAA and OIG.
• A separate chapter on documentation in the medical office describes how proper documentation can prevent penalties and refund requests, and help you prove compliance in the case of an audit or review.
• Detailed examples and samples of completed insurance forms show you how to apply knowledge in the real world.
• Emphasis on the business of running a medical office highlights the importance of the medical insurance specialist's role in filing clean claims, solving problems that do occur, and collecting overdue payments.
• Service to Patient feature throughout the chapters focuses on ways to provide quality service to the patient as well as your co-workers.

• All content has been reviewed by industry experts and meticulously updated to reflect recent changes in insurance claim filing.
• In addition to the list of key terms at the beginning of each chapter, a separate list of key abbreviations clarifies common terms identified in the field primarily by their abbreviations.
• Key points at the end of each chapter briefly summarize important chapter content to help you better understand the subject matter.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 736 pages
• Publisher: Saunders; 10 edition (November 7, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416036660
• ISBN-13: 978-1416036661
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #35,865 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lots of info, perhaps too much., October 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Insurance Handbook for the Medical Office (Book with CD-ROM for Windows) (Paperback)

I felt a little bogged down by all the information contained inthis book. It seemed too detailed and included a lot of stuff thatdidn't really apply to just medical insurance (for example thecomplete hypocratic oath which doctors take)! Overall, it was a pretty good book. It would have been a great book if they had cut out about a third or even half of the information. I thought Guide to Medical Billing, by a company called ICDC was much better. A lot of the pertinent data without too much extra. I also liked a book called The Medical Billing Handbook by Jason Cummings.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent overview of the medical billing task., March 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Insurance Handbook for the Medical Office (Paperback)

This is an appropriate text for the medical biller. Although written for the office-based biller, home-based billers will find most (but not all) the information of practical benefit. Used in our homestudy course as a standard text.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 7th Edition pulls itself into the 21st Century, September 27, 2001

By	KS (Redlands, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Insurance Handbook for the Medical Office (Book with CD-ROM for Windows) (Paperback)

Having had to wait many weeks for the new, revised 7th Edition I was very pleased to note the improvements made from the 6th Edition. The color examples, universal legend symbols and easy paragraph read for the student are excellent. Another long awaited addition is the expanded Medi-Cal section (applicable to California only). Having been in the industry for 25 year I can say that this is the best Billing book on the market that I have been able to find. The only down side to this book is that it is not written for the "new" biller, but more for an intermediate to experienced biller. As long as the instructor can "dumb down" some of the excellent explanations, students will learn a tremendous amount from this book. I use it in my classroom along with my own material and the students are leaving the class with a well rounded knowledge base. Over all, I am pleased with the new Edition and it's contents.