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I will offer a different opinion. Spend your time in residency and fellowship on becoming a diagnostically good pathologist and on developing social skills, networking skills, and hospital committee work. Yes, you need a basic knowledge of CPT coding and billing, but it is not rocket science and you are not going to walk out of residency on June 30 and be doing billing for a private group on July 1st. You will, however, be meeting new colleagues (pathology and clinical) and signing out cases. Your value to the practice at that point is how much you don't mess up a specimen and how much people like you. Negotiating contracts with 3rd party payors at that point is low down the list.
Now, with that said, you need to know about billing in training for one simple reason, and that is your job search. You need to be able to size up the job in your head, calculate the number and type of specimens, and multiply by the expected reimbursement to get an idea of the $$ side of things. For instance, what is the difference between what they are paying you and the revenue you are generating? Or, is the figure they quoted you for what the partners make consistent with the specimen volume and number of pathologists? This is very easy for some jobs. For an outpatient lab that sees only GI or derm, you know the 88305 $$ and you know the specimen volume you'll be signing out. Pretty simple math. This harder with general group practices, but you need to ballpark it. This is also complicated by the payor mix, but you can ballpark it based on known Medicare rates.
Now, with that said, you need to know about billing in training for one simple reason, and that is your job search. You need to be able to size up the job in your head, calculate the number and type of specimens, and multiply by the expected reimbursement to get an idea of the $$ side of things. For instance, what is the difference between what they are paying you and the revenue you are generating? Or, is the figure they quoted you for what the partners make consistent with the specimen volume and number of pathologists? This is very easy for some jobs. For an outpatient lab that sees only GI or derm, you know the 88305 $$ and you know the specimen volume you'll be signing out. Pretty simple math. This harder with general group practices, but you need to ballpark it. This is also complicated by the payor mix, but you can ballpark it based on known Medicare rates.