Top 12 Medical Billing Clerk Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the rapidly evolving healthcare industry, a strong medical billing clerk resume blends sharp technical know-how with steady, people-first skills. Spotlighting the right abilities signals to employers that you can move through coding and payer rules without tripping on errors, keep money flowing, and stay compliant while the rules keep shifting.

Medical Billing Clerk Skills

1. ICD-10
2. CPT Coding
3. HIPAA Compliance
4. Medisoft
5. EHR Systems
6. Medical Terminology
7. QuickBooks
8. Claims Processing
9. Excel
10. Revenue Cycle Management
11. Denial Management
12. Patient Registration

1. ICD-10

ICD-10 is the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases. In the U.S., that means ICD-10-CM for diagnoses and ICD-10-PCS for inpatient procedures. It standardizes how conditions and treatments are recorded, which drives accurate billing, reporting, and analytics.

Why It's Important

ICD-10 underpins clean claims. Consistent, specific codes support correct reimbursement, reduce denials, and feed quality reporting and analytics with reliable data.

How to Improve ICD-10 Skills

Keep your code set fresh and your habits tighter than tight.

1. Refresh annually: Use current code books and official guidelines; updates hit every year.

2. Practice with cases: Work through real chart scenarios; compare against official guidance and payer policies.

3. Document clarity: Partner with clinicians to tighten documentation for laterality, acuity, severity, and encounter type.

4. Use encoders wisely: Cross-check with trusted tools but verify with guidelines; tools speed you up, guidelines keep you right.

5. Audit and learn: Review denials tied to diagnosis coding, fix root causes, and build quick-reference notes for recurring issues.

How to Display ICD-10 Skills on Your Resume

2. CPT Coding

CPT (Current Procedural Terminology) codes describe medical, surgical, and diagnostic services. For billing clerks, selecting the right CPT/HCPCS code and modifiers is the heart of producing a clean, payable claim.

Why It's Important

Standardized service reporting cuts ambiguity. Correct CPT coding speeds adjudication, reduces rework, and aligns with payer coverage and bundling rules.

How to Improve CPT Coding Skills

Sharper coding, fewer headaches.

1. Track yearly changes: Procedures and guidance shift; update tools and cheat sheets when the calendar flips.

2. Master modifiers: 25, 59, X{EPSU}, 51—know when they fit and when they don’t.

3. Watch bundling edits: Review national correct coding edits and payer-specific policies before submitting.

4. Tight charge capture: Confirm services documented match what’s billed—no gaps, no extras.

5. Peer review: Spot-check tough cases together and normalize decisions across the team.

How to Display CPT Coding Skills on Your Resume

3. HIPAA Compliance

HIPAA compliance means protecting patient privacy, securing health information, and responding properly to incidents. Billing touches a lot of PHI, so precision and restraint matter.

Why It's Important

Strong HIPAA practices build trust, prevent breaches, and avoid costly penalties. Patients expect discretion; regulators demand it.

How to Improve HIPAA Compliance Skills

Privacy isn’t one-and-done. It’s a rhythm.

1. Know the rules: Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification—understand what’s required, not optional.

2. Access control: Role-based access, unique logins, timeouts, and multifactor authentication.

3. Secure channels: Encrypt data in transit and at rest; avoid PHI in unsecured email or notes.

4. Audit trails: Monitor access logs, review anomalies, and document actions.

5. BAAs and vendors: Keep Business Associate Agreements current and verify safeguards.

6. Incident readiness: Practice breach response, document timelines, and notify as required.

How to Display HIPAA Compliance Skills on Your Resume

4. Medisoft

Medisoft (CGM Medisoft) is practice management software used for patient demographics, scheduling, charge entry, claims, and posting. A workhorse for small and midsize practices.

Why It's Important

It speeds routine tasks, supports EDI claims and ERAs, and reduces manual errors—key to keeping revenue moving.

How to Improve Medisoft Skills

Turn the knobs that matter.

1. Keep it current: Update versions, payer lists, and fee schedules so edits and forms match reality.

2. Customize views and reports: Tailor claim forms, statements, and aging reports to your workflows.

3. Leverage automation: Batch claims, auto-post ERAs, set task reminders, and use templates.

4. Tight integrations: Connect clearinghouses, eligibility, and EHR charge capture for fewer handoffs.

5. Data hygiene: Standardize payer names, plan IDs, and reason codes to clean up reporting.

6. Backup and permissions: Routine backups, restricted roles, and change logs protect the data and your day.

How to Display Medisoft Skills on Your Resume

5. EHR Systems

EHRs store patient histories, orders, documentation, and often pass charges to billing. For a billing clerk, they’re the source of truth—if the inputs hum, the claims sing.

Why It's Important

Accurate, timely documentation and structured data reduce coding ambiguity and billing delays. Less chasing, more processing.

How to Improve EHR Systems Skills

Make the system work for the process, not the other way around.

1. Training with intent: Learn charge capture, encounter templates, and coding helpers specific to your EHR.

2. Interoperability: Encourage clean data exchange with PMS/billing and clearinghouses; fewer manual keystrokes, fewer errors.

3. Prompt updates: Apply regulatory and code-set updates on schedule to avoid mismatches.

4. Structured entries: Use discrete fields for diagnoses, modifiers, units, and place of service to prevent guesswork later.

5. Feedback loop: Capture common documentation gaps (e.g., laterality, time, complexity) and share quick fixes with clinicians.

6. Security first: Role-based access and audit logs keep data safe and compliant.

How to Display EHR Systems Skills on Your Resume

6. Medical Terminology

A shared language for anatomy, conditions, and procedures. Without it, coding becomes guesswork. With it, speed and accuracy jump.

Why It's Important

Clear understanding prevents miscoding, supports correct modifiers, and helps you decode clinician shorthand without stumbling.

How to Improve Medical Terminology Skills

Build muscle memory and context.

1. Targeted study: Focus on the specialties you bill—cardiology terms differ from ortho nuances.

2. Flashcards and spaced practice: Short, frequent drills stick.

3. Read charts: Real notes beat lists; note prefixes/suffixes and how they shape meaning.

4. Link to codes: Tie terms to typical ICD-10/CPT pairs so recall turns into billing action.

5. Quiz as a team: Quick daily stumps keep everyone sharp.

How to Display Medical Terminology Skills on Your Resume

7. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is accounting software for invoicing, payments, and reporting. In healthcare, it’s typically used alongside a practice management system to manage general ledger, not to store PHI.

Why It's Important

Clean books matter. Reconciling patient payments, refunds, and deposits against bank statements and reports keeps finances transparent.

How to Improve QuickBooks Skills

Make accounting align with billing without mixing patient health data.

1. Chart of accounts fit: Map income, adjustments, write-offs, and bad debt to the right buckets.

2. Integrations and imports: Pull summarized daily deposits and payment files from your billing system; avoid double entry.

3. Automation: Set recurring entries, rules, and reminders for statements and follow-ups.

4. Reconcile routinely: Monthly bank and merchant reconcilations keep discrepancies from snowballing.

5. Protect PHI: Keep identifiable medical details out of QuickBooks; use patient IDs only when necessary.

How to Display QuickBooks Skills on Your Resume

8. Claims Processing

Claims processing covers preparing, submitting, and following up on claims—clearinghouse to payer and back again—until the balance hits zero or the appeal window closes.

Why It's Important

It’s the cash engine. Accurate, timely submissions mean fewer denials, quicker payments, and steadier revenue.

How to Improve Claims Processing Skills

Trim delays. Chase precision.

1. Eligibility up front: Real-time checks for plan, coverage, copay, and prior auth needs.

2. EDI accuracy: Validate 837 files, monitor 277CA acknowledgments, and scrub edits before they reach the payer.

3. Clean claim rate: Track and raise it; fix top rejection causes with templates and training.

4. Work queues: Sort by denial reason, payer, and timely filing risk so nothing expires.

5. ERA posting: Auto-post 835 remits, then reconcile, escalate variances, and route underpayments.

6. Attachments: Send required documentation (op notes, records) with the claim or promptly on request.

How to Display Claims Processing Skills on Your Resume

9. Excel

Excel tracks and analyzes billing data—payments, AR aging, denials, trends. Done right, it becomes a quick diagnostic tool, not a swamp.

Why It's Important

Rapid analysis means faster decisions. Patterns surface. Bottlenecks get named and solved.

How to Improve Excel Skills

Modern functions, tidy sheets, less manual grind.

1. Core formulas: XLOOKUP over VLOOKUP, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, IF/IFS, and TEXT functions for clean reports.

2. PivotTables and slicers: Summarize denials by code, payer, location—slice and spot outliers.

3. Data validation: Drop-downs and rules to lock in consistent payer names, CARC/RARC codes, and statuses.

4. Conditional formatting: Flag timely filing risks, aging over thresholds, and zero-pay claims.

5. Power Query: Import, clean, and combine remits and exports without hand-editing.

6. Macros (carefully): Automate repetitive formatting and report builds, with audit-friendly steps.

How to Display Excel Skills on Your Resume

10. Revenue Cycle Management

Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) tracks the journey from registration to final payment. It’s the choreography of charge capture, coding, claims, payments, and follow-up—plus the reporting that steers it all.

Why It's Important

Strong RCM squeezes out waste, slashes avoidable denials, and shores up cash flow. Better operations, better margins.

How to Improve Revenue Cycle Management Skills

Tighten each handoff; measure what matters.

1. Front-end accuracy: Verify demographics and coverage; collect copays; secure prior auth before service.

2. Coding integrity: Align ICD-10, CPT/HCPCS, and modifiers with documentation; audit regularly.

3. Charge capture: Close gaps with templates and reconciliation between schedules, notes, and charges.

4. Fast, clean submissions: Submit daily, clear scrubbing edits, and monitor acknowledgments.

5. Denial prevention and appeals: Trend denials, fix root causes, and template strong, timely appeals.

6. Patient financial experience: Offer estimates, payment plans, and clear statements; reduce bad debt.

7. KPIs on repeat: Days in AR, clean claim rate, first-pass yield, denial rate, net collection rate—review and act.

How to Display Revenue Cycle Management Skills on Your Resume

11. Denial Management

Denial management means preventing denials, correcting what slips through, and appealing with precision. It’s detective work plus process repair.

Why It's Important

Every preventable denial drains time and cash. Fixing systemic causes boosts first-pass yield and shortens AR.

How to Improve Denial Management Skills

Be systematic. Be quick.

1. Classify by reason: Eligibility, medical necessity, coding, prior auth, timely filing—bucket and rank.

2. Map codes: Tie CARC/RARC codes to actions; build playbooks for top offenders.

3. Tackle preventables: Close gaps at registration, auth, documentation, and coding with targeted fixes.

4. Appeal smart: Use templates, cite policy, attach documentation, and hit deadlines.

5. Escalate underpayments: Compare allowables to contracts; dispute shortfalls.

6. Monitor cycle times: Track days from denial to resolution and shrink the lag.

How to Display Denial Management Skills on Your Resume

12. Patient Registration

Patient registration collects the data that drives everything: demographics, coverage, consents. If this step stumbles, the rest of the cycle limps.

Why It's Important

Accurate registration prevents eligibility denials, misrouted claims, and slow payments. The simplest fix is often at the front desk.

How to Improve Patient Registration Skills

Accuracy, speed, and clarity—aim for all three.

1. Digital intake: Pre-visit forms, photo ID and insurance card capture, and e-consents reduce lobby time and errors.

2. Real-time eligibility: Confirm plan, copay, deductible, and coordination of benefits at check-in.

3. Standardized fields: Use consistent formats for addresses, phone numbers, and payer names; verify spelling.

4. Financial conversations: Share estimates, collect copays, and offer payment options upfront.

5. Language and accessibility: Note interpreter needs and communication preferences to avoid missteps later.

6. Quality checks: Daily spot audits for missing DOBs, ID numbers, or plan IDs—fix same day.

How to Display Patient Registration Skills on Your Resume