Medical Billing and Coding
Physicians Practice is a website that covers issues related to practice management. They recently released of their 2017 staff salary survey results. The survey covered 10 different staff positions. Below are the results for four of the ten positions we thought would be of most interest to our visitors:
- Medical Assistant
- Front Office Clerk
- Medical Biller (assume this includes Medical Coder – but that’s not clarified in the results)
- Billing Manager
The Physician’s Practice survey received over 1000 responses across 6 regions in the United States.
One question we have is about medical coders. They weren’t listed separately so the assumption is the Medical Biller category includes medical coders as well. This isn’t clarified in the survey or the article that accompanies it.
One interesting observation. Salaries in the survey are not necessarily dependant on years of experience. This could be because some more experienced (>20 years) may not have the technical skills of some of the younger employees. Or maybe they don’t work as many hours. Another thought is they may work for smaller or individual provider practices who aren’t able to pay as much. This is true across some of the 10 different staff titles for just about every region – even some of the nursing.
We’ll be performing our own salary survey soon specific for medical billing and coding so you can get a better idea of how your salary compares to your peers. Our last survey 3 years ago in 2014 the average salary was $35,738 with an average experience of 7.8 years.
Below is a summary of the Physician’s Practice national results which can be found in detail here:
- Medical Assistant: $27,444 – 39,434
- Front Desk Staff: $26,417 – 37,233
- Medical BIller: $30,700 – 45,203
- Billing Manager: $44,379 – 55,385
One of the biggest challenges give by about 45% of respondents is increased workload and employees performing dual roles.
Other interesting insights from the survey are that almost 60% of employers have a Medical Biller on staff and almost 30% have a Billing Manager on staff.
The position most likely to be let go when staff cuts are being made:
- Front Desk Staff 56.7%
- Medical Assistant 45.7%
- Medical Biller 19.7%
Another interesting statistic is the number of physicians on staff:
- 37.4% have one physician
- 40.2% have between 2 and 5 physicians
- Only 11.4% have between 6 and 10 physicians
So the majority of respondents (over 75%) have fewer than 5 physicians on staff.
The entire detailed national 2017 survey results are available at Physician’ Practice.
2017 Staff Salary Survey Results – Regional Summary
Physicians Practice also broke down the survey results by region divided into six. Here’s a summary of the results for the 6 regions for the same four positions discussed above:
Northeast (CT, ME, MA, NH, NJ, NY, PA, VT)
- Medical Assistant: $28,735 – 43,575
- Front Desk Staff: $29,254 – 38,060
- Medical BIller: $30,783 – 46,964
- Billing Manager: $52,286 – 57,429
Mid-Atlantic (DC, DE, KY, MD, NC, TN, VA, WV)
- Medical Assistant: $26,753 – 41,045
- Front Desk Staff: $25,862 – 42,083
- Medical BIller: $29,583 – 44,676
- Billing Manager: $44,754 – 60,140
Southeast (AL, FL, GA, MS, SC)
- Medical Assistant: $26,432 – 37,000
- Front Desk Staff: $24,621 – 33,336
- Medical BIller: $30,668 – 41,481
- Billing Manager: $42,354 – 46,566
North Central/Plains & Rockies (CO, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MT, NE, ND, OH, SD, UT, WY)
- Medical Assistant: $27,581 – 37,085
- Front Desk Staff: $26,171 – 33,488
- Medical BIller: $28,081 – 44,001
- Billing Manager: $35,000 – 63,709
South Central (AR, LA, MO, OK, TX)
- Medical Assistant: $26,254 – 39,301
- Front Desk Staff: $24,902 – 39,563
- Medical BIller: $31,081 – 45,456
- Billing Manager: $36,000 – 55,400
West ( Includes Alaska & Hawaii) (AZ, NV, NM, AK, CA, HI, OR, WA)
- Medical Assistant: $28,898 – 47,130
- Front Desk Staff: $26,622 – 39,783
- Medical BIller: $34,435 – 48,090
- Billing Manager: $42,752 – 58,666
The regional survey regional results and article are available at Physician’s Practice.
If you scroll down at the link above there several comments and questions about the results.