How To Become A Medical Billing Clerk: What It Is and Career Path

What is a medical billing clerk and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Eve Leija AAS, NCMA

As a Medical Billing Clerk, you will process payments and create billing arrangements in hospitals and clinics. You will gather and verify patient information and identification, handle insurance information, code, maintain records, and update databases, among others.

As a Medical Billing Clerk, you need to have good communication skills. You need to be able to easily and efficiently relay your thoughts and opinions to the people you're working with. Next are math skills. You need to be knowledgeable and able to solve basic math problems. Lastly are organizational skills. As a Medical Billing Clerk, you will be doing many things simultaneously, so you should be able to juggle all these things at once while staying organized.

In this position, you can earn around $430,957 per year on average, with a 5% job growth rate. You can also take on other roles like being a Billing Specialist, an Accounts Receivable Specialist, an Accountant, and an Accountant and Office Manager after some time.

What general advice would you give to a medical billing clerk?

Eve Leija AAS, NCMA

Medical Assistant Program Director, Website

To maximize salary for a medical assistant obtaining certification from one of the credentialing organizations such as American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA) can make a new hire more competitive. Continuing educations along with developing any specialized skills such as phlebotomy. Demonstrating professionalism initiative and reliability, along with gaining a strong reference from previous employers.

ScoreMedical Billing ClerkUS Average

Salary

2.6

Avg. Salary $33,566

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.2

Growth rate -3%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.84%

Asian 6.79%

Black or African American 10.39%

Hispanic or Latino 21.90%

Unknown 4.26%

White 55.82%

Gender

female 88.73%

male 11.27%

Age - 47

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 47

Stress level

6.2

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.8

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

8.6

Work life balance is excellent

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a medical billing clerk

Explore medical billing clerk education requirements

Most common medical billing clerk degrees

Associate

29.8 %

Bachelor's

21.7 %

High School Diploma

18.8 %

Start to develop specific medical billing clerk skills

Skills	Percentages
Patients	17.61%
Medical Billing	9.59%
Healthcare	6.82%
Data Entry	6.62%
Customer Service	6.04%

Complete relevant medical billing clerk training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New medical billing clerks learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a medical billing clerk based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real medical billing clerk resumes.

Gain additional medical billing clerk certifications

Medical billing clerk certifications can show employers you have a baseline of knowledge expected for the position. Certifications can also make you a more competitive candidate. Even if employers don't require a specific medical billing clerk certification, having one may help you stand out relative to other applicants.

The most common certifications for medical billing clerks include Certified Billing and Coding Specialist (CBCS) and Medical Assistant.

More About Certifications

Research medical billing clerk duties and responsibilities

Accept and process healthcare claims and confidential medical records; verify patient eligibility and manage the Medicare and Medicaid billing process.
Interact with patients as part of the quality assurance process (follow-up, EHR confirmation, billing confirmation).
Reconcile insurance and patient payments while researching and resolving incorrect payments, EOB rejections, and assort issues with outstanding accounts.
Utilize medical terminology and follow HIPAA guidelines.

Prepare your medical billing clerk resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your medical billing clerk resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a medical billing clerk resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable medical billing clerk resume templates

Build a professional medical billing clerk resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your medical billing clerk resume.