Releases | Kareo

New Release: Introducing Telephone Appointment Reminders and a New, Redesigned Help Center

January 23rd, 2012 by Kathy McCoy

As we wrote last week, automated telephone appointment reminders can significantly improve your show-up rates. That’s why we are excited to share a new automated telephone reminder feature that will help reduce your patient no-shows as well as unveil a redesigned help center.

Automated Telephone Appointment Reminders

To help ensure scheduled patients arrive at your office, we have added a new feature to automatically place a phone call to remind patients of the scheduled appointment.

How does it work?

Patients with a telephone number will receive an automated call the day before a scheduled appointment. Upon answering the call, patients will hear a personalized recorded message as written below:

“This is an automated reminder that you have an appointment with your medical practice scheduled on [Day e.g. Thursday January 25th] at [Time. e.g. 12:00 PM]. <pause> Please press #1 to repeat this message, or please call our practice at [Your Practice Telephone Number] if you would like to change your appointment.”

How can you add automated telephone appointment reminders to your Kareo account?

The new telephone appointment reminders are included in the Kareo Max plan. To upgrade to the Max plan:

Login to Kareo
Go to Settings
Select Company
Find Practice
Select your practice(s)
Change Subscription Edition to “MAX”
Save

Along with the new telephone reminders, the Max plan also gives you the ability to call Kareo customer support without paying individually for each call. For more information on the Max plan features and cost, see the Pricing & Sign-up page on www.Kareo.com.

Help Center Redesign

The new, redesigned Help Center aims to ensure you have quick and easy access to guides, how-to articles, and online training resources. We will continue to aggressively add valuable information into the Help Center in the coming months. The following new features will help you locate and learn more about Kareo tools and services:

New Search Feature – quickly locate documents, training guides, and how-to articles related to a specific topic. For instance, type “ERA” and within a fraction of a second entries related to ERA will appear on your screen.
Simplified Layout – the updated screen design makes it easier to navigate to resources
Quick Start Topics – if you are new to Kareo, need assistance on enrollments for electronic claims, or you would like updates on 5010 readiness, a click on the desired topics will link you to comprehensive guides.

5010 Project Update

For this release, the 5010 refinements focused on changes required for eligibility (files 270 and 271) transactions. There should be no changes to your workflow.

Fixes & Enhancements

Beyond the new Help Center and the appointment reminders, there is one other additional feature you will notice.

New “Corrected” Claim Reason: Added a new “Corrected” submit reason for claims. Prior to this release, you could select “Replacement” or “Void” reasons when resubmitting a claim with changes to the payer. The new “Corrected” option is intended to help avoid rejections for resubmitting updated claims.

Updated Help Files and Training Videos

Updated Help Files

Updated the “Appointment Options” in the help files to reflect the new telephone reminder capabilities.

Updated Training Videos

A new “Automatic Phone Call Reminder” training video
Minor updates to video hosting performance on the following video topics under Popular Videos and How To Videos:
- Introducing the Kareo Setup Wizard
- Welcome to Kareo
- Configuring Users and Security
- Encounter Forms
- Setting Up Departments
- Webinar 6

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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3 Ways to Reduce No-Shows with Patient Reminder Calls

January 18th, 2012 by Kathy McCoy

No-shows are painful for almost every practice. At first, the inclination may be to breathe a sigh of relief—a minute to catch up! But if a no-show costs your practice an average of $100 in lost revenue, that means if your office has just one missed appointment every single day, you are going to lose over $24,000 every single year. That would go a long way toward paying someone’s salary.

That’s why it’s important to keep your no-show rate as low as possible.

How do you accomplish this? With good patient communication. As busy as people are these days, you can’t expect them to remember an appointment they made months, weeks, or even days ago. Automated patient reminder calls can improve no-show rates significantly.

In fact, studies have shown that automated reminder calls reduced no-show rates from 23.1% to 17.3%.

Here are a few key pointers on improving your no-show rates with reminder calls:

Use an automated system to insure consistency of messaging and timing of calls.
When using phone reminders, make sure patients have the option to repeat the phone message so they can get all the details
Personalize the reminder message with the patient’s name and your practice name

Many practices have traditionally used a postcard reminder system; the downsides of this include possible human error or slow/missed postal delivery. And since the percentage of advertising mail has increased, the likelihood of the postcard getting lost in the pile of mail received in the home is very high.

Another traditional reminder method is the personal phone call from a member of the practice’s staff. While this has been shown to be highly effective, you need to weigh the cost of having a staff member’s valuable time dedicated to this task—often the benefits in terms of show-up are outweighed by the cost of staff time. In addition, reminder calls are often pushed to the back burner by a staff member who is too busy or reluctant to make the calls.

Kareo has long offered email appointment reminders as part of our practice management software, and many of our customers have found this to be extremely effective. However, the need for practices to improve no-show rates demands a more dynamic approach. Watch this blog for an important announcement on Friday.

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New Release: Introducing the Information Panel and More 5010 Readiness Updates

December 14th, 2011 by Kathy McCoy

In this release, we focused our efforts on 5010 readiness and making sure we give you all the information you need for this transition. We have also included a new area on your practice home page in Kareo to access educational information from within Kareo.

Information Panel

The information panel is a new area located in the lower left corner of your Kareo main screen. This area gives immediate access to important educational information, right at your finger-tips.

This month, the information panel will focus on 5010 readiness. By clicking on the 5010 symbol, you will be launched to the 5010 information page with access to checklists, videos, and reference information.

In the future, this area may provide educational insights such as how to maximize your collections, best practices for tackling increasing patient receivables, assistance interpreting your data, etc.

5010 Project Update

This release also includes several modifications for 5010. Even though enforcement of the 5010 format has been delayed by CMS, compliance with the new format is still necessary by January 1, 2012. Below are the modifications included in this December release to address 5010.

Zip Code Extension: Modified existing zip codes in Kareo to include the four digit extension
Additions for Ambulance Services: Added pick-up and drop-off address fields

Behind the scenes, additional changes have been made to accommodate both clearinghouse and payer requirements. These do not have any impact on workflow or screens within Kareo.

Fixes & Enhancements

Beyond 5010 additions, this release also included some fixes and enhancements. The most notable items are below.

Patient Statements: Added a new option for you to limit the number of patient statements received by a patient
Missed Encounter Report: Modified to ensure only missed encounters display in the report
Unapplied Reporting: Corrected unapplied calculation across AR reports

Updated Help Files, Guides and Training Videos

Updated Help Files

5010 updates on affected topics
Patient Statement Options
Service Locations

Updated Guides
Visit the Kareo Guides page: www.kareo.com/support/guides

Updated 5010 Compliance Checklist

Updated Training Videos
No training video additions have been made for this release.

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New Release: Introducing Patient Billing and Portal, Plus Fixes & Enhancements

August 29th, 2011 by Kathy McCoy

In this release, we are rolling out the red carpet for an exciting new feature that will help you get paid faster: Patient Billing and Portal! This latest addition to our patient payment module enables you to email statements to your patients who can then pay their bill securely online. Read on to find out more about Patient Billing and Portal as well as several fixes and enhancements implemented in this release.

Patient Billing and Portal

We all know how it is: The statement gets lost in stacks of junk mail or the payment gets put off until patients find their checkbook, an envelope and the correct postage. With patient responsibility increasing, it is now more challenging than ever to collect patient payments after the time of service. The Patient Billing and Portal service lets you email statements and offers your patients a convenient way to pay their bill online. After enrolling in the service, simply configure your billing options to send an email to patients who want to receive email statements with a link to pay their bill online. If a patient does not pay their bill within a configurable number of days, Kareo will automatically send a printed patient statement with a website address the patient can use to pay their bill online. Either way, you’re getting paid faster! Plus, this new feature saves you time when posting payments; no more opening envelopes and manually entering payments! Instead, payments made online are automatically entered into Kareo and are ready to be applied to open patient balances. This service is provided by Kareo in partnership with InstaMed®, a secure healthcare payments network. The Patient Billing and Portal is also an important precursor to the third phase of our patient payment module that is coming soon and will include automated payment plans for patients. To enroll in the Patient Billing and Portal service, please call 888-775-2736 and select the option for sales, or you can also email sales@kareo.com. For additional instructions, see Patient Statements > Patient Billing and Portal and Payment Posting > Find a Payment in the Kareo Help files.

Fixes & Enhancements

In this release, you’ll find the following fixes and other enhancements in response to customer feedback:
Appointment Scheduler

Email Reminders: The configurations to email appointment reminders have changed. Email reminders are now sent if 1) The Appointment Options are set to send email reminders and 2) Patient is opted in on the patient record to receive email notifications.
Email Notifications Opt Out: If a patient does not want to receive email notifications (email statements, appointment reminders), you can uncheck “Send Email Notifications” on the patient record.

Encounters

If the dates for “Service Date” and “Procedure Date of Service” are more than a month apart, you will receive a warning message to confirm those are the correct ones.
If a patient has two or more appointments on the same day with only one encounter entered into the system, all appointments on that day are now reported correctly on the Missed Encounters report.

Insurance Policy

If there is an overlap between an expired insurance policy and the date of a new one, the correct policy is now captured on an approved encounter. For example: Insurance Policy A was valid from 1/1/2010 to 2/1/2011 and Insurance Policy B started on 2/1/2011. If the date of service was 1/1/2010, Insurance Policy A is the one captured on the approved encounter.

Paper Claims

On the CMS 1500 form, the employer name (box 11b) on the secondary insurance now populates correctly. Note that the group number must be entered for the secondary insurance policy on the case.
Under Paper Claims settings, when the Medicare style is selected, box 11 now displays correctly as “None.”
UB04 claim form: Under the Practice Settings for an insurance company, when the “Provider accepts assignment of benefits” box is checked, box 53 will now print as ”Y.”

Payments

You can now apply large dollar ERAs to a large number of claims. For example, a $60,000 check can now be applied to 800 different claims.

To Do List

If you enroll in the new Patient Billing and Portal service and are a business office user, payments made online (ready to be applied) will show as a task in the To Do List.

Updated Help Files, Guides and Training Videos

In this release, we have made significant updates to the help files, guides and training videos:

Updated Kareo Help Files
Kareo help files are accessed through the Kareo application: Select Help > Kareo Help in the top menu. Updates were made to over 35 help topics including:

Insurance List Management
New Insurance Company
Merge Insurance Company
New Insurance Plan
Merge Insurance Plan
New Provider
Provider Claim Settings
Provider Performance Report
Payment Posting
Enter Copays
Reverse Payment
Patient Billing and Portal
Data Entry Tips & Shortcuts
Password Change
Kareo Support

Updated Guides
Visit the Kareo Guides page: www.kareo.com/support/guides

Implementation Guide for Company Administrators
Payment Posting Guide

Updated Training Videos
Visit the Kareo Training Videos page: www.kareo.com/support/training. Visit the Kareo Self-Paced Courses page: www.kareo.com/support/training/self-paced-courses. Updates have been made to several training videos, webinar replays and self-paced courses including:

Procedure Macros
Credit Card Processing
Pre-Recorded Webinars 1-6, 8 and 10
New Biller Part 1
New Biller Part 2

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We're Pleased to Announce: Free Customer Support for Your Kareo Medical Billing Software!

August 2nd, 2011 by Kathy McCoy

Customer support is key to easy and efficient use of your medical billing software, and we’re pleased to announce that we’ve made some significant improvements in Kareo’s Customer Support over the last year. You may recall that last September we announced in this blog that we had big plans for improving your Kareo customer experience, and we have been working hard on that in the months since.

A major change, of course, is that we have just made free support available for all customers via email and chat, eliminating the additional fee previously charged for customer support. That’s right—you won’t be paying any additional fees for email and chat customer support from now on, regardless of your plan level or frequency of use.

This change is the cherry on the top of a number of customer service enhancements we’ve introduced this year, which include tripling our customer support staff, extending the hours that customer support and training are available to you, and adding a variety of professional training courses and documentation.

Why the change?

We’re happy to say that Kareo has been growing like crazy over the last two years, and particularly over the last year. So why the change?

“Kareo has long been known for its intuitive and innovative product,” answered Dan Rodrigues, Founder and CEO of Kareo. “Now we’re striving to earn a reputation for industry leading customer service by making our support more accessible to all customers, improving response times, providing effective training and documentation, and simplifying and accelerating the setup process.”

As part of this focus, key customer service enhancements that Kareo has added in 2011 include:

Introduced free email & chat support to all customers and eliminated the additional $99/mo. support fee
Tripled headcount in customer service to improve the quality of interactions and support its rapid growth
Extended customer support hours to Mon-Fri from 6am-5pm PT to better serve our East coast customers
Launched live chat to provide customers with an additional real-time customer support option
Built a guided setup wizard in the product to simplify and accelerate the setup process
Doubled the number of training webinars each week and introduced early morning webinars
Hired a professional trainer to create a library of self-paced video training courses
Hired a professional technical writer to develop product documentation and other self-help content
Added account managers to offer more proactive support to high volume users
Established the lifeline@kareo.com email address that customers can use to contact the CEO

325% increase in customer satisfaction

The recent customer service enhancements have resulted in a 325% increase in customer satisfaction over the past 6 months as measured by the industry standard Net Promoter Score (NPS) based on customer responses to monthly surveys.

“Our transition to Kareo was greatly enhanced by the helpfulness and timeliness of their support team,” said James Davidson, MD of Willoughby, Ohio. “During our transition, we quickly learned that Kareo’s trainers made themselves available during and after webinars to answer our questions. The friendly and helpful answers moved us along quickly. We had a number of questions and issues in the first couple months, but now we often go months without seeking assistance. All of our issues have been resolved, usually within a day or two.”

Davidson added, “Although we opted for email support, in several instances a Kareo support representative called or provided a contact phone number to more efficiently resolve an issue. The level of professionalism has been superb and Kareo has support personnel that truly understand the program, medical billing, and are based here in the U.S.”

By the end of this year, Kareo also plans to introduce:

A redesigned enrollment process for electronic claims, remittance and real-time eligibility services
A new online help center with a searchable knowledgebase of self-help content, videos, and answers to frequently asked questions

James Armijo promoted to VP of Customer Support

In connection with this announcement, Kareo has promoted James Armijo to VP of Customer Support. James joined Kareo last fall, and has been instrumental in driving the improvements to Kareo Customer Support.

“Over the past 9 months since James joined Kareo, he has been focused and determined to raise our customer support game,” said Dan Rodrigues in an email announcing the promotion. “He has worked with his team to develop a strategic plan and followed through with diligent execution. He’s smart, creative and continually strives to bring innovation to Kareo.”

Congratulations to James and the Customer Support department for their hard work and innovation over the last 8 months. But Kareo’s certainly not going to rest on our laurels. We will continue to improve your customer support experience, and we will continue to ask you to tell us how we can improve. If you have suggestions or concerns, please contact us: Email us at Support@Kareo.com, use the “Comments” feature on this blog, or contact us on our Facebook page. And, as Dan promised in September 2010: “If you experience service that is less than outstanding and our support team is not able to resolve the issue, please email me directly at lifeline@kareo.com and I will respond within 24 hours.”

We truly want to make medical billing easy for you.

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