Product | Kareo

Should Medical Billing Software Cost Thousands of Dollars?

March 21st, 2012 by Kathy McCoy

The issue of cost is likely the rawest nerve in healthcare. Costs are and have long been rising. It is felt in every practice and by every provider, every staffer and every medical billing professional. Increasingly, cutting costs is essential not merely to growth but to survival.

So, how to do that? Where are costs centered? What costs can be cut? Can any be cut in a way that benefits the practice? These are important questions. So is this one:

Does medical billing software have to cost thousands of dollars?

In a word, no. A secure, web-based medical billing “software as a service” with just a simple, affordable monthly fee replaces the cost of expensive software and licenses… and the myriad other costs associated with implementing it. Site licenses. Floor space. Servers, hard drives and other hardware. Security and backup protocols. IT staffing. Power and cooling. Installation. Training. With Kareo’s pay-as-you-go web-based software, these considerable costs disappear. But they aren’t the only ones.

In what other ways is your billing software costing you?

In the quest to cut costs, non-web-based medical billing software could be undermining your efforts in still other ways. Labor (also known as “time”) is at the top of that list, of course. Long-term contracts require time for review and consideration, and likely the valuable time of an attorney. Some billing software packages are more challenging (read: “time-consuming”) to learn than others. Also, not all billing software is designed for maximum efficiency of use… or for full utilization of time-saving electronic claims processes.

Kareo’s intuitive design, frequent upgrades (at zero cost!) and robust support for implementation, training and customer service all help reduce labor hours in the practice. Some practices report dramatic reductions in the their overall medical billing costs. Even streamlined reporting and seamless integration play a role, saving steps and facilitating easier and faster processes… with fewer time-consuming errors. Easy to learn, easy to use and designed for speed and accuracy, Kareo makes medical billing not simply easy but less costly.

Wendy Thacker of Dickson Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine says that she tried Kareo after using a billing service and Advanced MD, and found that Kareo was half the cost of other solutions.

So, how much should medical billing software cost?

Well, first and foremost, it should provide the maximum benefit for the barest minimum of cost. For this, thousands of practices have turned to Kareo’s web-based, monthly, affordable, sign-up-and-go, intuitive, robust and cancel-anytime software. In today’s healthcare environment, why would you work more efficiently and maximize collections while saving thousands in software and related costs?

To learn more about Kareo and how it can make medical billing easy for your practice, register now for our next demo webinar on March 29. You’ll see a full demonstration of the system and get answers to your questions about how Kareo can work for you.

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Vote for the April Medical Billing Tip of the Month!

March 20th, 2012 by Kathy McCoy

You are the judge for our monthly Medical Billing Tip of the Month contest! Listed below are the three top tips submitted this month (out of the many great ideas we received!). Just read them over and then post on our Facebook page which number is your choice for Medical Billing Tip of the Month. You can also post your choice in the Comments box here on our blog. Either way, be sure to vote before the deadline of Friday, March 30! The winner will receive a $250 American Express Gift Card and the acclaim of their peers. Here are the candidates:

#1 Use the “Patient Statements” Report to Correct Addresses

Our billing company uses the Kareo Clearinghouse Report “Patient Statements” to fix wrong addresses of patients that entered in the system. To do this, click on the Patient Statements tab -> Select the PSC Patient Change of Address Tab. Click on Update all records, and voila, all the addresses are updated. This helps minimize returned mail, and in turn, increases our (and our client’s) bottom line.

When we receive returned statements due to an incorrect address, we make an alert within Kareo, so we do not resend the statement again to the wrong address.

#2 ERA Tracking for the Payment Method Code of “Check”

We receive ERAs from the carrier with the payment method code “Check.” We need to track this type of ERA to confirm the check has been sent to the provider’s correct address and to wait until the check was cashed by the provider. Here are the steps we follow to do this:

We create a category in Kareo called “Insurance Pending Check.”
While auto posting payments from Kareo, we select the above category to track this type of ERA. After we have received the EOB from the provider office, we need to confirm with the provider whether this payment has been cashed by the provider; after that we need to change it into the correct category.
Once monthly, we run a report in Kareo called the “Payment Detail” report to see if there are any labeled “Insurance Pending Check” or go to the “Find Payment”(F10) screen and find the category of “Insurance Pending Check.” Then we will contact the carrier or provider about the status of the check.
If the provider did not receive the check or it was sent to the incorrect “pay to” address, we contact the carrier to reissue the new check and void the previous check.
This process insures you will avoid missing checks.

#3 How to Avoid Denials Due to a Name Change

If a patient is known in your office under one last name but their insurance company still has that patient listed under another last name, use the Medical Record field in the General Tab for local office use to record their last name. You can then submit the claim with the last name that matches the insurance information, avoiding a rejection, but still be able to search for that patient under the last name known best to the office/billing staff. This doesn’t happen often but sometimes insurances have other last names listed in their eligibility for various reasons. I have found that using the Medical Record field still allows me to search for that patient under the other last name. It helps to minimize confusion when searching for patients with multiple last names.

Which one is your top choice? Vote now on our Facebook page or in the Comments box on this blog. You have until Friday, March 30, to vote! We’ll announce the winner in our April newsletter.

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March Release Targets Claim Acceptance Improvement!

March 19th, 2012 by Kathy McCoy

On Friday, March 16th, all Kareo accounts were upgraded to the latest Kareo version. Several key improvements have been made to increase claims acceptance.

Increase Claim Acceptance

We understand how important it is for you to have as few claim rejections as possible. Through our recent research, we identified two changes we could make within Kareo to reduce common rejections. Hence, the following enhancements have been made for this release.

Built-in Field Logic. To avoid rejections caused by format issues, built-in logic has been added to Provider and Service Location fields to ensure proper formats are entered. Both address and phone number fields in these areas have been improved. As you or your staff enters information into these fields, the logic will make sure the format is correct before you move on.

Automatic Code Checking. Code checking will often catch code mismatches based upon coding and payer reimbursement rules. In this release, a code check process will automatically happen during charge entry without manually selecting the ‘Check Codes’ button to initiate the process. This is available with no additional charge for customers on the Plus, Complete, and Max monthly plans.

Additional Fixes & Enhancements

The following area enhancements have been made in this release:

Added a new installation alert when installing Kareo
Updated the Kareo minimum system requirements

Updated ‘How-to’ Articles
Updated Training Videos

At Kareo, we continue working hard to make medical billing easy for you. Customer feedback drives our service and ensures we build the features that matter most to people like you, so your input is critical to us. Please email your suggestions, challenges and ideas for our next release to features@kareo.com.

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Reduce No-Show Rates, Improve Productivity and Increase Revenue with Kareo’s Newest Feature

March 13th, 2012 by Kathy McCoy

The delivery of healthcare to patients is a cost-based endeavor. Of course, medical billers know as well as the physicians they support that costs have been rising and will continue to increase. At the same time, reimbursements are declining. This is one of the key reasons behind Kareo’s commitment to continuous improvement.

Upgrading Kareo to help practices continue providing quality care

Kareo exists to help practices and billing companies maximize their billing accuracy and streamlinine their processes and use of labor so that healthcare professionals can continue providing quality care. The pursuit of this objective means continuously evaluating Kareo’s features and functions with regard to maximizing practices’ productivity, efficiency, cost containment and ability to earn and prosper. Which is why Kareo is proud to have added Automated Telephone Appointment Reminders to our medical billing software.

Reminder phone calls are known to reduce no-shows

It’s no secret: No-show appointments affect revenue… sometimes dramatically. In a previous blog post, we mentioned that studies have shown reminder calls can reduce no-show rates by as much as 25% (from 23.1% of appointments down to 17.3%). A single no-show per day can result in thousands of dollars in lost revenue per year… at a time when practices are counting every penny. So, it’s critical to keep no-shows to the absolute minimum, and appointment reminder phone calls are the optimal way to do that.

Everybody leads a busy life, and an appointment booked just days ago might be just as likely to fall through the cracks as one booked weeks in advance. Automated email reminders, which are standard in Kareo, help reduce the likelihood of a no-show. But phone calls work better (especially as a follow-up to email reminders). Some patients don’t have email. Also, emails may not be read in time, may not make it to the patient’s eyes, might get flagged as junkmail, etc. Reminder calls are more likely to reach patients, which is probably why phone calls are so effective at reducing no-shows.

Automation makes reminder calls easy, worry-free & less costly

A central problem with reminder calls, however, is that they require staff labor. In some cases, as has been previously reported on this blog, the labor expense can exceed the financial benefit of preventing no-shows. In addition, today’s healthcare reality is that the staffs at most practices are quite busy… and too often totally overwhelmed. Reminder calls, on many staffers’ lists of least-favorite duties, are often among those tasks that don’t get performed.

By automating these calls, Kareo enables provider practices to reduce their appointment no-shows without requiring additional staff labor. Practice staffers need only indicate the need for a reminder call in Kareo when scheduling the appointment. Patients will be called one day prior to the appointment with an automated reminder message that can (and should be) personalized for the patient. Patients also have the option to repeat the reminder message.

Ensure consistency and timing…and patient satisfaction

Kareo’s Automated Telephone Appointment Reminders have other benefits beyond reducing no-shows and demands on staff labor. With this feature, practices are able to ensure that every call is consistent and reflective of the practice’s vision for patient contact. Also, all reminder calls are placed at 12:00 PM Eastern time the day prior to the appointment, removing any potential for calls being placed too late to have their desired effect. But there’s another key benefit: Showing patients that you care.

Compassion is the centerpiece of healthcare. And patients’ satisfaction is represented as much (or more?) by the compassion and commitment they experience as by the quality of the care they receive. A reminder the day before the appointment enhances patients’ satisfaction by reminding also reminding them of and by extending the practice’s “caring touch.”

A low-cost upgrade for a high-benefit improvement

Automated Telephone Appointment Reminders are provided as part of the Kareo Max Plan. (Compare the cost increase with just two or three hours of staff labor time every week.)

For more about the Max plan, its features and pricing, please visit the Pricing & Sign-up page. Also, Kareo depends on our customers’ feedback to continue upgrading our medical billing software with features that improve practices’ bottom lines and medical billing companies’ ability to serve their provider clients. So please email any suggestions, challenges and ideas for Kareo’s next release to features@kareo.com.

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5010 Enforcement – Are You Ready? Kareo Is!

February 2nd, 2012 by Kathy McCoy

Even though the MGMA has called today for an extension of the 5010 enforcement delay to June 30, 2012, we recommend that you be ready now since many payers are requiring use of 5010. Unless HHS decides to accept the MGMA’s recommendation, enforcement of 5010 will start on schedule on April 1. And if you’re using Kareo, you are ready as long as you’ve taken some key steps.

Unlike traditional medical billing software, Kareo’s cloud-based technology allows for rapid updates to comply with industry changes – like 5010 – with little or no impact on the customer experience. Most of the changes have already taken place behind the scenes. However, there are a few things Kareo customers should have done to ensure their claims are process smoothly. If you haven’t already, check to make sure the items below have been updated in your Kareo accounts:

Update 5 digit zip codes to the full 9 digit zip codes.
Add physical addresses to replace PO Boxes.
Enter a new “Pay to Address” if you currently receive payments at a PO Box or a lockbox.

Please review the Kareo 5010 Compliance Checklist for detailed instructions and the Getting Ready for 5010 blog post for training videos on how to make updates to the three areas mentioned above.

A few questions on 5010 that we’ve received through our blog include:

Q: Does the 9 digit zip code also need the slash after the 5th digit before inputting the last 4 digits and do all of the insurance companies have to have physical address’s rather than PO Box’s?

A: Here is what our 5010 expert advises:
Customers can include the dash but it is not required for the claim to process. Insurance company plan addresses can be a P.O. Box, also the 9 digit zip code requirement is not required for Insurance company addresses or Patient addresses

Q: Do I need to update patient’s address to 9-digit zip codes too?

A: The patient’s addresses do not have to be 9 digits.

Q: Am I correct in my understanding that I do not need to update my zip codes for all my insurance companies?

A: Zip codes for the insurance plans or companies do not have to be 9 digits.

Q: Do I need to change all patient PO box address to a physical address?

A: No, patient addresses are not affected by any 5010 changes.

Q: Will the system eventually populate all zip codes with the 4 digit codes?

A: We are currently doing that right now only for Service Location addresses, Practice Information Addresses, and Provider Addresses. If you don’t see a 9 digit zip in those areas, then our system could not match the zip code with a valid address on file so you would have to manually update in those situations.

Q: It says no PO Boxes. Is that for place of service or does it mean mailing/billing address for providers. We live in a very rural area and only have delivery AT the PO.

A: You cannot have PO Box addresses for Providers in the following areas: Provider Addresses and Practice Information addresses. If you have a PO Box for a location you wish to receive payments to, you must use the new Pay to Provider areas in the Provider records.

Q: Just to clarify: We only get mail at our PO Box. From my understanding I go to each provider and enable pay to address. Do I enter the name of the provider to go with the address or do I use our business name for the name?

A: Customer Support advises that you would have to call the payer if you are not sure. Typically, this would be the same as whatever name you were sending as the Billing Provider.

Q: We just noticed that in the Claims Setting section, under the Override EIN? option, there now appears an option that says Enable Pay to Address. Do we need to check off and complete this option? We’ve watched all the 3 parts of the video series and have made the required updates but this was not mentioned and it does not appear in any of the videos.

A: Under Claim Settings overrides, the “Enable Pay-To Address” is a global setting for Pay to Address, meaning that by default all Payers will have the Pay to Address included. Do not check this box unless you want all Payers to have the same Pay to Address. Pay to Address is per provider. On page 3 of our Kareo 5010 Compliance checklist, it discusses when to use the Pay to Address and how to configure it.

Routine customer communications will keep you up-to-date with our 5010/ICD-10 progress. We encourage customers to ensure they are thinking ahead to the bigger ICD-10 transition by October 1, 2013.

If you have additional questions, please feel free to contact us at Support@Kareo.com, via the Comments section of this blog, or on our Facebook page.

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