Thursday, January 15, 2009 Bacolod produces 1st US-certified medical billing experts
FIVE medical practitioners from Negros Occidental recently passed a US-based examination on medical billing and coding, the first certified group of healthcare professionals in the province to become accredited in the United States of America, the Focus Pacific said.
The passers include Dr. Nadara Z. Gendrala, Antionette Y. Alegada, Rebecca R. Alotaya, Imelda E. Gendrala, and Wynlie Ann D. Aujero who will be certified by the National Healthcare Association (NHA). They were trained by the Focus Pacific with instructor Paula M. Hall, LVN, CPC-H, CPC-C, PMCC, CHE.
Focus Pacific, a service provider with over 300 employees, owned primarily by US based Focus Services, specializes in multi-product telesales and customer relationship management.
Bacolod City Councilor Jocele Batapa-Sigue, chair of the Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for Information and Communications Technology (Bnefit) Inc., lauded Hall and the group of healthcare professionals for igniting the outsourcing potential of Bacolod and Negros Occidental towards high value healthcare services.
In a press statement, Hall said she saw the need for the United States Healthcare Revenue Management sector to benefit from the unlimited resources in Bacolod.
She said education and training are her focus in utilizing the resources in Bacolod and surrounding provinces to handle the outsourced workflow processes of healthcare facilities in the United States. She has assisted in setting up several call centers in India before coming to the Philippines.
"I am proud to be a part of this amazing country. I have been truly blessed to be a small part of this process. I have the opportunity to meet some of the most intelligent, highly motivated people on the face of the earth, right here in the Philippines. At times, it was extremely challenging but our trainees worked very hard over the past year to become highly educated in this market. I am proud of them all. We are now equipped, ready and anxious to take on medical billing and coding projects from the United States Healthcare Revenue Management market," said Hall.
John Porter, Focus Pacific president and chief executive officer, said he is pleased to have reached this milestone. "The team that has been assembled in the Philippines is very impressive. Each member is bright, honest, hardworking and eager to learn and perform. Each of them, including Ms. Hall, should feel a great sense of satisfaction for their accomplishment."
Focus' goal is to make the Philippine site the Business Process Outsourcing/Knowledge Process Outsourcing (BPO/KPO) hub for healthcare revenue management workflow process which caters to the United States and United Kingdom.
Batapa-Sigue, on the other hand, said the local IT-BPO stakeholders in Bacolod today join hands to attract more investments in the non-voice outsourcing and off-shoring sector as these would mean more high-value jobs for our people.
