How To Become A Senior Patient Account Representative: What It Is and Career Path

What is a senior patient account representative and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

A senior patient account representative manages patients' accounts in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. They are concerned with everything involving patient accounts, such as collecting and processing payments, submitting insurance claims, drawing up payment plans, and maintaining the patient's database. You will serve as the mediator between patients, healthcare institutions, and insurance companies.

This requires you to verify eligibility for insurance due, submit insurance claims, keep all records of patients, and process payments either in installments or in full. This role requires your administrative and accounting skills to come to play. Negotiation and communication skills are also essential for this role.

You must be able to manage medical records, data entry, CPT, and Medicaid. Many senior patient account representatives have bachelor's degrees in business and healthcare administration. A high school diploma can suffice for this role if you are willing to gather the relevant knowledge, experience, and certifications. You will typically earn a mean annual salary of $40,365.

ScoreSenior Patient Account RepresentativeUS Average

Salary

4.5

Avg. Salary $57,603

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.9

Growth rate -8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.49%

Asian 3.64%

Black or African American 14.28%

Hispanic or Latino 18.22%

Unknown 4.06%

White 59.32%

Gender

female 88.41%

male 11.59%

Age - 46

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 - 46

Stress level

7.9

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

4.9

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.6

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior patient account representative

Explore senior patient account representative education requirements

Most common senior patient account representative degrees

Bachelor's

36.3 %

Associate

28.9 %

High School Diploma

13.9 %

Start to develop specific senior patient account representative skills

Skills	Percentages
Patients	20.47%
CPT	9.08%
Data Entry	8.05%
Medical Terminology	5.99%
Medicaid	5.81%

Complete relevant senior patient account representative training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior patient account representatives 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 senior patient account representative based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior patient account representative resumes.

Research senior patient account representative duties and responsibilities

Manage Facebook and patient communication programs.
Review physician's documentation to ensure correct CPT codes and ICD-9 codes are billed correctly for services render.
Use online referral system to obtain authorization for treatment for a specialist office using ICD-9 and CPT codes.
Train new staff in billing and follow-up of Medicaid HMO plans including both the hospital and electronic billing system.

Get senior patient account representative experience

Generally, it takes 6-12 months to become a senior patient account representative. The most common roles before becoming a senior patient account representative include account representative, customer service representative team lead and billing specialist.

Prepare your senior patient account representative resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior patient account representative 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 senior patient account representative resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

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