Description
Medical Insurance Online can be used as a complete course on medical insurance or as an interactive course supplement — providing a virtual externship experience. It combines highly interactive content, practice, and assessment into one resource that can be used in the classroom, home, or anywhere else you can access the Internet. Your instructor will guide you through the course, assigning different sections as appropriate.

In addition to access to the online course, you also should have the following text and manuals, all of which you will need to complete this course successfully — and will continue to use as an insurance billing specialist:

Insurance Handbook for the Medical Office, 9th Edition Reading assignments for the course come from this textbook. It's the #1 insurance billing text that's been trusted for over 25 years to help students just like you learn how to submit, trace, appeal, and transmit claims for the full range of today's health plans. Most of the reading references can be found in the Anita's Advice feature and at the beginning of each module.

Saunders 2006 ICD-9-CM, Vol. 1, 2, & 3 and HCPCS Level II This convenient reference provides all three volumes of the 2006 ICD-9-CM paired with the HCPCS Level II codes (with 2006 updates available online) in one book, along with the Official Coding Guidelines.

CPT 2006 Standard Edition (from the American Medical Association)

If you already have access to 2005 ICD-9-CM, HCPCS, and CPT reference manuals, then you may purchase Medical Insurance Online (textbook and online course) separately.

Medical Insurance Online teaches you what you need to know to be a successful medical billing specialist by placing you in an online "virtual externship." Learning within a simulated work environment puts new skills and information into context, which makes them easier to understand and remember.

In the first online module, the virtual office manager, Anita Anderson, will introduce you to the virtual office staff (doctors, medical assistants, other medical billing specialists, etc.). You will also become familiar with the paperwork and concepts involved in medical billing, especially the insurance claim form and the "lifecycle" a claim follows from beginning to end.

Then, from the second module on, you will work side-by-side with office staff, interacting with patients, their information, claims and insurance payers — actually learning on the job. Using lots of interactivity and feedback throughout the course, you will trace each client's claim through the lifecycle, learning about insurance coding, how to troubleshoot claims, and the requirements of different payers.

The course consists of nine modules, the first one being the office orientation and the remaining modules each focusing on a different type of insurance "payer" (e.g., private commercial carriers, Medicare, managed care, etc.). Each module begins with a reading assignment from Insurance Handbook for the Medical Office, 9th Edition, giving you the proper foundational information before tackling another "day" on your externship. At the end of each module you'll complete an exam which is automatically scored and sent to your instructor. You can also view your grades at any time.

By the end of the course your virtual externship will have given you experience in following one claim through its lifecycle for each of the major types of insurance payers you're likely to encounter in real life.