Starting the Design

My Project Time and Energy

The last two weeks working on the design of my course has been a little time consuming.  The design of the course and my web-page went great.  I feel I was able to create a very nice header and get the build done fairly quickly.  However, create the WBID plan took me quite of bit of work.  It just did not seem to come easy on how I wanted the design Analysis web-page.  It took me a great deal of time coming up with all the content for the course and understanding the material I need to cover from the questions in the book.  I am really glad there were examples in the book about the outline of what a WBID plan should look like.  I think my Homepage and Analysis web-pages turned out nice after all that work.   I am glad we had two weeks to complete this work.  I would have never been able to get this done in a week.  I think this is a lesson learned; when creating the Analysis of the course you’re going to design make sure you dedicate lot of time and energy drinks to it.

Click here to see my project so far.

My Problems and the Lack of Time

Here are a few words about my Learning Task Map project this week.  This part of the project was not fun at all!  Coming up with the content was no problem for me at all; it was using Word to create the flowchart.  Lesson learned; do not use Word to create flowcharts.  I thought it would just take me a few hours to get this done and it end up costing me my whole Sunday evening.  If there is a free tool for creating flowcharts, please send me the link.  I thought the Learn Task Map was going to be the end of me tonight but it final came together.  I will be looking for a new tool this week.

My Workload:

With the other class I am taking this quarter seems to be making it very hard for me to manage my time.  My online course design is working very well for my learning style.  I like to know what is expected of me for the whole quarter and have a little bit of ability to jump head in the reading.  However, my other class is making it very difficult for me to find the time to get through all the reading.  My assignments are not post until the middle of the week and I constantly need to check the site to find out when my assignments are due.  I find this a very good learning tool for myself when designing this course.  I will make sure I take into consideration that people having families, jobs and school.  You may not always have time to jump on a computer every day and check your assignments.  I kind of thought that was the point of online learning.  This is why all WBI courses should have a good course outline with deadlines for the student, so they can prepare there busy weeks ahead of time.

My Online Course Design

Tentative Topic of this Project: What is Medical Billing?

Learner Description: 

This page was created for adult learners work in IT and who support file maintenance of medical billing. However, the learner is going to learn through the eyes of a patient.


Main Purpose of this Online Course: 

Is for the learners to feel comfortable with explaining and troubleshooting medical billing issues. 

The Course Details:

It will be facilitated by an IT trainer and be fully online. The reason for it to be fully online will allow the learner to work at home or work during the course.  It will be facilitated so the IT trainer will know the progress of the class and if there needs to be modifications to the course content.  Medical billing can change on a dime so the content must be able to be changed or be updated for the learner so they are current on the issues.

Time-line for Implementation:

My time-line is to have it ready to go as my final project for this class.  I would like to Implement it at the being of January 2011 for existing employees.  This will give me great fee back on what should be improved for new employees coming into the department. 

Total Hours for Learning this Course:

The learner should be prepared to spend two hours a day Monday-Friday.  The course should last about 6 weeks.

Course Objectives:

1. Understanding Medical Billing as if they were a patient.
2. Provider Base Billing
3. Claims 
4. Explanation of Benefits (EOB)
5. Charges 
6. Post Payments
7. Moving Money
8. Edit Report Messages
9. Invoices 
10. Practice Management System 
11. Electronic Billing Process 
12. American National Standards Institute
13. Electronic data interchange (EDI)
14. Insurance Companies 
15. Insurance Payments
16. Re-sending a Claim

Who Can Take This Course?

This course is for anyone who wants professional development in the IT department or Billing Office.

What Platform Will I Host this Course?

I will be hosting the course via a website link.  The link is to be determined in the future.

Is this a New Course or Redesign of a Face to Face Classroom Course??

It kind of both.  I never have done an entire billing class for this length of time and with this much information.  Many of the components I teach in a quick classroom forum but most of the time it is just for the billers themselves.  However, I felt that as our department is growing some IT people are really good with the down and dirty of file maintenance, but do always have a complete understanding of the connection from patient to bill to paid.

Final Thoughts:

I am really excited to start this new journey with blogging my thoughts and problems I might have on the way of designing this course.  However, the end seem long at the moment, but it will be very thrilling when it all done.  Please feel free to post useful information about medical billing to help me in my quest. Please do not provide me with your government, hospital and insurance views.  I just want information to help students who are learning medical billing.  Please keep your thoughts clean.