Training | Kareo

Medical Billing Made Easy: Getting Started with Kareo

March 28th, 2012 by Kathy McCoy

Our goal here at Kareo is to make medical billing as easy as possible. For us, that starts with the structure of Kareo. In this post we’ll walk through the major features of the Kareo program, following the format of the instructional video, Getting Started, by Mel Aclaro. For complete information, see your product documentation in our Help Center.

Let’s start by looking at the basics: the dashboard, the working environment, data entry and finding records.

Dashboard

The dashboard includes two sections: Navigation and Practice Home.

Within the Navigation section you’ll find Shortcuts and Open Windows. Clicking on a shortcut will take you directly to any one of the nine areas listed. Open Windows displays windows that are currently open, such as Practice Home, Encounters, etc. Clicking open windows items will make them appear in the main work area, and using the escape key will close them.

Working Environment

Labeled Practice Home, this area consists of four panes, including Workflow, To Do List, Payment Velocity/AR Aging and Key Performance Indicators.

Workflow is a diagram of icons representing the workflow for your particular occupation.
To Do List displays incomplete tasks and activities. Blue text indicates hyperlinks that will display more information.
Payment Velocity/AR Aging shows the time it is taking to be paid. Clicking the AR/Aging Snapshot radio button displays income collected for key periods of accounting activity.
Key Performance Indicators monitor snapshots of financial and operational health metrics of the practice.

Navigation and Searching Features

There are a number of ways to get around within the Kareo program:

Main Menu Bar displays labels that, when clicked, display submenus.
Tool Bar is a set of icons representing commonly used functions. These items are a subset of main menu bar items.
As noted above, Navigation includes Shortcuts and Open Windows you can use to move around in the program.

To search for data in a list view (Patients, Encounters, etc.) use the Look For and Search In fields. Enter a term to search in the Look For field, and in the Search In dropdown, select the name of the column under which you wish to search. Clicking Find Now will display all instances of your search term. Additional features include:

Tabs across the top of the data viewer represent either data filters or additional sections of information. As data filters, you limit your search to areas defined by the tab. Within a specific record, the tabs act as sections, providing additional detail for the record.
Page Indicators – Kareo shows only a few tens of records at a time. Watch the “Showing” number at the bottom left of list windows for total records showing, and total records found (showing 1-50 of 2,007). Note the page indicator shown at the bottom right. You may be viewing a page of 50 records, but there may be 41 total pages to view.
Task Buttons – This set of buttons along the bottom of the page (New, Open, Delete) changes according to the window you are viewing.

Entering Data

By entering data accurately, you can reduce claims rejections and maintain more consistent records. Follow these tips for better data entry:

Use upper and lowercase letters for proper nouns. Acronyms, such as AMA, should be entered in all caps, without periods.
Don’t use colons. Some claim submission systems have problems with this punctuation.
In the full name field, enter first name, middle initial and last name.
Use the tab key to move from one field to the next.
Use consistent abbreviations such as Ave., St., Pl., etc.
For dates and SSNs, use numbers only, such as 082975 (date) or 122121221 (SSN). Kareo will insert punctuation.

Finding Records

To find a record, identify the information you need, such as “find patient,” “find document,” etc. Use one of the menus or shortcuts to select the feature, and enter data as described above under Navigation and Searching Features. Try experimenting, using different selections in the Search In dropdown. Your results will change depending upon which areas you choose to search.

As you get to know the Kareo program you’ll find that your work becomes more and more efficient. Visit the Help Center on our website for downloads, guides, training, and more. To see a live demo of the Kareo system, join us for a demo webinar on Thursday, March 29. Register now.

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Earn Your CEU Credits for Recertification Free in Kareo Informational Webinars

February 1st, 2012 by Kathy McCoy

Did you know that you can actually earn all the CEUs you need for the year to recertify with PAHCOM free in the Kareo informational webinars offered each month?

That’s right—each month, Kareo offers a complimentary one-hour informational webinar on a key subject in medical billing and practice management, and PAHCOM provides 1.0 CEU credit for those who participate. Since PAHCOM requires 24 hours of Continuing Education Units (CEUs) every two years to recertify as a CMM (Certified Medical Manager), if you attend a Kareo informational webinar each month you’ll earn the credits you need absolutely free of charge. And many other organizations accept PAHCOM CEU credits—just check with your professional association.

And you can learn about a variety of subjects; recent webinars have included:

How to get paid in 2012 even with new incentives, new coding rules and other changes
How and why collecting deductibles is even more important to your practice in 2012
Managing your medical billing team to get the performance you expect

You can see the full list of our previous webinars from 2012, 2011 and 2010.

(Note: CEU credit can only be earned when you participate in the live webinar. Archived recordings are not eligible for credit.)

Plus, Kareo’s webinars feature some of the leading experts in practice management, including:

Betsy Nicoletti, M.S., CPC
Elizabeth W. Woodcock, MBA, FACMPE, CPC
Sara Larch, MSHA, FACMPE
Frank Cohen
And more

Upcoming webinars include other interesting subjects:

Optimizing office visits for preventive services and why it’s becoming more important to medical practices’ profitability (February 23)
Government incentives for the medical practice: tips and tools to qualify, participate and get paid (March 22)
The National Health Insurance Report Card (NHIRC) and what can be done to reduce the overall cost of getting paid to the goal of 1% (April 19)
And much more

So don’t wait—register now for our February 23 webinar, Optimizing Office Visits for Preventive Services, with expert Betsy Nicoletti, and plan to attend all our upcoming webinars. And tell us what information you need! Let us know what subjects you would like to learn about, and we’ll include your ideas in our future webinars. Just share your thoughts in the Comments box.

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Kareo Video Spotlight: Posting Payments Made Easy

January 26th, 2012 by Kathy McCoy

Posting payments should be easy. The less time you have to spend worrying about whether or not a payment was posted, the more time you have to spend on more important tasks. Fortunately, Kareo can make it easier and less frustrating to post and track payments.

An online training video on Posting Payments from our Help Center, which features many helpful video and written training tools, gives a quick demonstration of what Kareo can do for you in terms of making it easy to post and track payments. The video covers the basics, including:

Accessing the Find Payments/Received Payments window
Posting from paper explanation of benefits (EOBs)
Posting patient payments
Posting refunds
Posting electronic remittance advice (ERA) records

Accessing the Find Payments/Received Payments window

There are several ways to do this. First, you can access the Encounters dropdown menu to find the Receive Payments and Find Payments screens. They may also be accessed using the function keys on the top of the keyboard (F5 and F10, respectively). The icons for each are also on the toolbar, and you can see what they will do if you hover over the icon with your mouse. You can also access them by using the Encounters option, either on the side navigation bar or the main workflow area of the screen.

Posting paper EOBs

On the main workflow screen, you will first click on Receive Payment and then on New Payment. You will see the list of line services, along with the unapplied amount in the upper right corner. In the lower left corner is a series of fields that allows you to apply the payment, and the lower right corner keeps a running tab of payment and billing activity.

As explained in the video, you might wish to fill in the Batch Naming field, using a naming convention such as the current date and your initials. This will allow you to run reports where you might, for example, wish to separate out EOB payments from everything else.

The postdate field defaults to the current date, but you can change it to the date the check was deposited, if you wish. The select insurance field has a dropdown menu, but you may also search if there is a long list of companies. The adjudication date is the date the check from the insurance company was cut, and the reference number is the actual check number. Method is the type of payment, and then you can enter the amount. You may wish to enter a category, again for purposes of running reports, but it is not necessary. Under the Apply tab, you can enter the allowed amount, which will be automatically figured, along with any copay or deductible. As you apply the funds, the unapplied amount in the upper left corner will decrease. When you have finished with the EOB, click Save Payment to move on to the next one.

Note the importance of the PCN number, which is an identifier found on the paper EOB. It will consist of an encounter number, the letter “z,” and your customer number. So you may see something like “3z1204.” This would be the third encounter entered into the system, and “1204” is your customer number, which will never change. This PCN number will help you quickly find encounters using the search function.

Posting patient payments

This is very similar to, but in some ways easier than, posting an EOB payment. On the Receive Payment screen, you would select the type as “patient” from the drop-down field. The reference number would be the check or the last four digits of the credit card. You may wish to have a “patient payment” category, again if you wish to run reports and separate out these payment types.

Most of the rest of posting a patient payment is almost identical to what you do for a paper EOB. When you enter the amount of the payment, the patient’s remaining balance is reduced.

Posting refunds

What happens if a payment exceeds what is owed or available to apply? Kareo makes it easy to post refunds.

Once all payments have been applied to each line service, the amount will go down to zero. If the patient paid more than that, they are issued a refund. This is done from the New Refund screen. Again, this is pretty self-explanatory with regard to the fields to fill in. The status may be either issued, if you are cutting the check in your office, or draft, if it will be coming from the physician’s office.

Note that it is very important to keep a constant eye on the Find Payment window, which lists all open items. This allows you to know immediately if it is necessary to post a refund. Make sure to commit the resources and time to keeping on top of this.

Posting ERAs

The final part of the training video covers posting electronic remittance advice notices (ERAs). Like it or not, the health care industry is moving toward being more and more electronic, so ERAs will become more and more common as a method of billing and payment.

In order to keep track of these ERAs, you would access Clearinghouse Reports from the Encounter screen on the left-side navigation panel. Under the Electronic Remittance tab, you can then view the ERA transaction information. Once you have reviewed the ERA to be certain everything is in order, you can then post the payment.

Caution: any ERA charges must originate within the Kareo system. Fortunately, you will get an error message explaining the problem if this is not the case. You can then print out any ERA errors and correct them.

You can watch this training video on Posting Payments now. You will also find many other popular training videos in the Kareo Help Center.

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Archived Demo Webinars and Free Medical Billing Webinars Available at Your Fingertips

December 28th, 2011 by Kathy McCoy

We’ve received a number of requests from our readers for the recordings of our webinars, both the demo webinars and the informational, free medical billing webinars we provide once a month. We’re pleased to tell you that you can access these recordings at any time.

View an archived recording of a Kareo demo webinar, where we demo the system and answer questions including how Kareo interfaces with various EHRs, how real-time insurance eligibility verification, ERAs and EFTs work in Kareo and much more.

Or you can access our listing of informational webinars on topics ranging from “Getting Paid in 2012: What You Need to Know Now to Make it Happen” to “Managing Your Medical Billing Team: Get the Performance You Expect” to “Preparing for ICD-10-CM: The Nitty-Gritty of Diagnosis Coding.” By viewing these recorded webinars, you can stay up to date on some of the key issues affecting your practice or medical billing service, and get tips from the experts on how to maximize your revenue.

If you would like to hear about upcoming webinars, sign up for our notification list. You can also sign up now for our January demo webinars and our January informational webinar on “Let’s Collect Deductibles in 2012: Tips for Improving Self Pay Collections.”

We would also love to hear from you on the topics you’d like to learn about in our webinars. Please share your ideas and requests in the Comments box.

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Getting Ready for 5010 – Settings You Should Know

November 16th, 2011 by Mel Aclaro

So, what is 5010 all about? How does it affect you? And, what’s Kareo doing to help you stay in compliance?

In a nutshell, 5010 is a new transaction set for electronic medical claims. If you’re a medical biller or someone who has anything to do with sending medical claims electronically, then you’re affected. Mandated use of the new 5010 transaction set goes into effect industrywide on January 1, 2012. (Peek at the calendar…) …That’s in less than 2 months.

About 5010

Here’s a summary about 5010 that our very own Terry Douglas was kind enough to put together for us.

As you would expect, all the parties in our industry are gearing up for it. Many of us are tweaking systems and processes now in anticipation of the cutover on January 1.

The thing is, some payers are beginning to accept the new format even before January. Depending on your relation to those payers, you could be impacted now in the form of rejected claims due to the mismatch between your existing settings and the transaction set those payers have enabled early.

There’s Something You Can (And Should) Do Now

All this is to say that there are a few settings updates you can do now in your Kareo software to help make a smooth transition, regardless of when your payer decides to enable 5010 on their system. The video series below (a 3-parter) will show you — step-by-step — what you need to know.

In addition to the video above, Corena Bahr — the writing wizard behind our Kareo manuals and technical guides — has also made available the 5010 Compliance Checklist for Kareo Users that you can download now for just the price of a click.

Check out both the video series and the checklist above. And, as always, if you have further questions, feel free to post them in the comments below or hit up our Support line (even better so they can assign a case number to your question).

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