Hands-On Expereince: Public Health Intern Contributes To Billing Initiatives Project | by Elizabeth Toney

Elizabeth Toney

In the beginning…all I knew about the Center for Community Support and Research (CCSR) was what I could assume from the name of the organization and its association with Wichita State University. Community suggested one’s local neighborhood, support spoke of helping, lending a hand, and its association with WSU spoke of education. When I found that CCSR had a current public health initiatives project that involved medical billing and coding I was excited to get the chance to learn how public assistance programs functioned. Through their billing project I hoped to gain a better understanding of the public health reimbursement process. This was going to be an opportunity to put into action the skills I learned from my bachelor’s degree in Health Services Management and associate’s degree in billing and coding.

Working with the Public Health Initiatives team of Sonja, Aaron, Vanessa, and Kristina along with Executive Director Scott Wituk I have had an opportunity to become exposed to a public health program that helps those who struggle with access to health care. CCSR is currently involved with a Local Health Department Billing initiative project for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) and Kansas Association of Local Health Departments (KALHD) towards maximizing sustainability of the local health departments. The Billing initiative provided opportunity for me to utilize my skills in determining types of valuable training programs that would help improve the billing practices and processes of health departments and minimize claim denials.

After research, the necessary information was utilized to create a two page training and professional certification guide that can be used when deciding to invest in training for billing staff to become certified. The guide provides sources for online training programs and a choice of medical biller certifications available. Though certification is not required it can benefit staff at the facilities obtaining reimbursement. This hands-on project gave me an opportunity to improve my research, decision making, planning, and communication skills.

This practicum opportunity allowed me to improve upon my own leadership skills. I had the opportunity to attend meetings of local coalition groups like Interfaith Ministries and Visioneering Wichita and participate in the discussion of past and upcoming public programs to assist those in need. All of my core competency skills have been improved through observing the leadership style of the Public Health Initiative team and the CCSR staff. It has been a real pleasure to have the opportunity to work with a group of dedicated people.