Health Care Business Opportunities

Health Care Business Opportunities Spending on health care increases as people grow older, contributing in part to U.S. health-care costs soaring - by 59 percent since 2000. That's five times the increases in both wages and inflation. One consequence of this is that health-care providers work hard to lower their costs, sometimes by outsourcing back-office services to small independent services, specifically for medical coding, billing,and transcription.

At the same time, the high price of traditional health care and the inability to simply get services from traditional health-care providers is spurring the growth of alternative medicine both for prevention and treatment. More than one in three Americans use some kind of alternative or complementary health care, such as natural products, breathing exercises, chiropractic care, yoga, massage, and diet-based therapies. Spending on organic foods for example, is growing by 20 percent a year.

Health Care Business Opportunities in the health care field that can do well include the following:

Fitness Trainer/Coach Fitness training was already growing before serious efforts to make war on obesity began. Trainers work both from home and at home, depending on the trainer and the needs of the clients. Trainers who work form home work with clients in gyms or at their clients' homes. Trainers who work at home have their clients come to their homes or provide coaching over the phone or Internet. Because the best advertising to potential clients is the trainer's own health and appearance, coaches and trainers need to be physically fit. Yoga, which is being used for relieving stress-related conditions and fitness, is increasingly popular and can be done at studios or by going to clients' homes. Resources: Aerobic and Fitness Association of America(AFAA).(800)446-2322.www.yogasite.com(877)-964-2748.

Medical Billing Service Though too frequently in the news because of FTC actions closing down medical billing business opportunity vendors, medical billing is a viable home home business. Medical billing involves the ability to handle detail, because accuracy is critical. Medical billers prepare insurance claims using medical-billing software and then send them electronically to third-party payers for evaluation and payment. Health-care providers other than doctors also use medical billers, including chiropractors, ambulance services, dentists, home-nursing services, and massage therapists. Resources: Electronic Medical Billing Network of American,Inc.,(908)470-4100.www.medicalbillingnetwork.com and National Eclectronic Billers Alliance(NEBA),(650)359-4419,www.neba.com

Medical Coding Between the treatment of a patient and the submission of a bill to a third-party payer, medical services provided to the patient must be translated into a standardized code. These codes are also used in record keeping and health-care statistical measurement by hospitals and various government agencies. Accuracy is imperative, as miscoding results in the health-care provider being fined. People with backgrounds in medical fields such as nursing are best suited to enter this growing field. Resources: American Academy of Professional Coders provides education and certification.(801)626-2633.www.aapc.com.

Medical Transcription Medical transcriptionists produce reports and documents from dictation that doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel have made regarding their patients. As medical personnel employ voice-recognition technologies, the transcriptionists'work becomes editing the documents on-screen. But they are still needed in this $50 billion industry based on the need for records on continuing patient care and to get paid for services from third-party providers, among other uses. Resources: The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI),formally the American Association for Medical Transcription offers free information about the profession.(808)982-2182,(209)527-9620.www.ahdi.org

Growing Organic Food A growing appetite for healthy foods and the desire to avoid produce grown with the use of pesticides or irradiation is propelling market growth for organic grower. Much locally grown produce, fresh herbs, and edible flowers found at farmer's markets, roadside stands, and gourmet restaurants are grown by small growers who practice what is variously called vest pocket or micro farming. People living in warmer climates have the advantage of being able to grow several crops a year. Resources: ATTRA National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service.(808)346-9140. www.attra.org

To be a medical biller, what you must know - Health Care Business Opportunities - has increased, however, in part because of security and privacy standards for handling medical data provided for in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996(HIPAA). Because these standards change, you must keep continually up to date.

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Health Care Business Opportunities
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Health Care: Up in Demand and Cost

Home Business in the Health Care Field